


Broken Hallelujah

by Cuda (Scylla), LadyShadowphyre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abaddon is Not Stupid, Adam Milligan cameo, Archangel Sam Winchester, Ash Cameo, BAMF Castiel (Supernatural), BAMF Sam Winchester, Bobby Singer Cameo, Dean Winchester Has Anger Issues, Ellen Harvelle is a Reaper, Heaven's Roadhouse, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore Cameo, Jo Harvelle cameo, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Joshua Thinks Of Everything, M/M, Mary Winchester Cameo, Metatron is a douche, POV Amelia Novak, Sam Winchester Completes the Hell Trials, Sam Winchester is Called Samael, Sarah Blake cameo, Soulless Sam Winchester, The Winchester Gospels (Supernatural), Trials of Hell, Warning for stabbing, apotheosis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 14:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15317613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scylla/pseuds/Cuda, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/pseuds/LadyShadowphyre
Summary: Completing the Trials of Hell didn't stop with curing a demon. When Metatron stole Castiel's Grace and completed the spell to eject the angels, he was counting on Dean Codependency Winchester to stop his brother from closing Hell. Too bad for him that he underestimated Sam's strength and resolve. Now Heaven's newest Archangel has a huge mess to clean up thanks to a power-mad Scribe of God, and he's learning on the job. Good thing he has an angel-turned-human best friend to help him get it right and save Heaven and Earth.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Spring 2018 Sastiel Big Bang](https://sastielbb.tumblr.com/)!
> 
>  _I did my best, it wasn't much_  
>  _I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch_  
>  _I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you_  
>  _And even though it all went wrong_  
>  _I'll stand before the Lord of Song_  
>  _With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah_  
>  \--Leonard Cohen, "Hallelujah"

 

**T** HE HOURS DRAGGED by, steady and unrelenting, broken only by each subsequent injection required and the slowly shifting tide of Crowley's words. Sam ached, head to toe and every part in between. He was used to pain, to the unrelenting white-hot burn of Michael's rage that had been broken up under the onslaught of Lucifer's pervasive subfreezing cold. Sam didn't kid himself into thinking that he could really handle it - how many times had he broken apart beneath their untender lack of mercy, only to be reassembled just enough to begin again? - but it was familiar. Almost an old friend. This was just as constant, as pervasive, but the burn was different, not sharp and stabbing but _throbbing_ , a low and steady hum in every cell of his body that built slowly stronger with each count of the hours. He hadn't lied to Dean when he said that these Trials were purifying him, but he had never been able to articulate what that meant. It hurt, oh yes, it hurt a lot, but the pain wasn't the point.

The burn wasn't the same.

It was time for the last injection. Crowley sat silent at last, tears streaming down his face as the weight of centuries of human emotion and guilt swept through the demon. Former demon, soon, and no more able to harm anyone ever again than any other human. Sam hesitated, resting one hand gently on Crowley's shoulder in a brief moment of offered comfort before turning away to collect the knife. He could feel the weight of Crowley's - Fergus MacLeod's - stare on his back, but when he turned around again the soon-to-be-ex-demon's eyes were fixed on the floor.

The blade of the knife bit cold into Sam's palm, blood and the by now familiar orange glow of barely constrained power welling up in the wake of the sharpened silver. The words for the spell flowed from his tongue, Latin nearly as familiar to him as English and these words in particular close enough to the standard exorcisms he had long since memorized. His legs weren't as steady as he would have liked as he walked back over to where Crowley waited, but his pace was even and he made it without falling.

The door to the church banged open, breaking his rhythm even before he heard Dean's voice yelling. "Sammy, stop!" Both Sam and Crowley turned their heads to look at Dean, but it was Sam the older Winchester's eyes were on as he continued, "Easy there. Okay. Just take it easy. We got a slight change of plan."

"What?" Sam blinked, almost shaking his head, because he couldn't possibly be hearing this, not again. "What's going on?" He looked behind Dean and, seeing no trace of the angel who had to have been the one to bring Dean here, added in alarm, "Where's Cas?!"

"Metatron lied," Dean said, ignoring the question, or perhaps just finding it unimportant. The latter was looking more likely when he continued with, "You finish this trial, you're dead, Sam."

Sam blinked at him, waiting for the caveat. Of course he would die finishing the Trials, he'd figured that out for himself ages ago given the logical progression of his declining health. When Dean didn't immediately continue with anything, no warnings of dire fates or destruction of the world, Sam prompted him. "So?"

It was not the response Dean had expected, clearly. Eyes wide and face rapidly losing color, he took two stumbling steps forward only to draw up short when Sam flinched back from him. "Sammy...."

"No, Dean. Look at him," Sam said, shaking his head. He pointed the knife point in Crowley's direction, willing Dean to look, to _see_ . " _Look_ at him! Look how _close_ we are! Other people will die if I don't finish this!" Because what was his life in the face of everyone on Earth? Hadn't he done this song and dance once before already? Did Dean remember none of it? Clearly he'd forgotten his own part about remembering that Sam was an adult now, but had he forgotten everything else, too?

"Think about it," Dean blurted out, oblivious to the turn of Sam's thoughts, instead taking a step towards Sam in desperate entreaty. "Think about what we know, huh? Pulling souls from hell, curing demons, hell, ganking a Hellhound! We have enough knowledge on our side to turn the tide here. But I can't do it without you."

"You can barely do it _with_ me," Sam rasped, pushing the words out past the lump in his throat. "I mean, you think I screw up everything I try. You think I need a chaperone, remember?

"Come on, man," Dean scoffed, though he looked guilty. Good. "That's not what I meant."

"No, it's exactly what you meant," Sam disagreed, eyes stinging. He jabbed a finger towards the confessional as he bit out, "You want to know what I confessed in there? What my greatest sin was? It was how many times I let you down." Dean, Bobby, Jo and Ellen, Kevin, _Castiel_.... "I can't do that again."

"Sam--"

"What happens when you've decided I can't be trusted again?" Sam asked, the stinging in his eyes spilling over as he stared Dean down, feeling helpless to stop the torrent of words that voiced his hurt over how Dean had cast him aside again and again. "I mean, who are you gonna turn to next time instead of me? Another angel, another-- another _vampire?_ " he practically spat, voice breaking. "Do you have any idea what it feels like to watch your brother just–"

"Hold on, hold on!" Dean broke in, finding his voice at last. "You seriously think that? Because none of it - _none_ of it! - is true." Sam looked away, a thin and thready huff leaving him. Dean took another step closer, dropping his voice to a more normal volume as he tried to reach Sam. "Listen, man, I know we've had our disagreements, okay? Hell, I know I've said some junk that set you back on your heels. But, Sammy... come on. I killed Benny to save you." Sam's jaw clenched, remembering the look in Dean's eyes when Sam had come back from Purgatory without Benny, the vampire "better brother", and shook his head once. Dean swallowed audibly and pushed on more quickly. "I'm willing to let this bastard and all the sons of bitches that killed mom walk because of you." He reached out then, gripping Sam's shoulder to try and make Sam look him in the eye. "Don't you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you! It has never been like that, ever! I need you to see that." He hesitated, then added, voice almost breaking, "I'm begging you."

"I do see it, Dean," Sam admitted, closing his eyes. He thought of how torn apart and broken inside he'd been when Dean had gone to Hell for him and his weakness had let Ruby get her claws into him. He thought of how he'd felt learning from those fucking _books_ that Dean's phone call before Ilchester had been to reach out and apologize, an apology Sam had never got to hear, and how Dean had come to him, against all odds with Castiel's help, to try and stop him from killing Lilith... a lot like he was doing now.

But he also remembered the helplessness and crushing agony that had torn at him when Dean and Castiel had disappeared when Dick Roman exploded, to all appearances dead _again_. He remembered how he had shut down, how Kevin had been taken by Crowley, the same demon who now sat waiting for the last step of the cure. Kevin, who had once had a bright future before he and Dean had fucked it up by cracking open the Leviathan tablet and activating him as a Prophet. Kevin, who had tried to reach out to Sam once he'd escaped only to get nowhere because Sam had turned off his phones and very nearly gotten himself killed before he'd hit a dog and been bullied into sticking around long enough to start living again instead of just existing on a shortening fuse.

Kevin, whose last words to Sam had been to tell him that he was doing the right thing.

"I do see it," he said again, opening his eyes and straightening his shoulders. "And that's part of the problem. How many more people have to die beneath a wave of sulfur and black smoke because you and I can't let go? We promised each other once, even if you seem determined to berate me for trying to honor it when I thought you were dead and safe in Heaven. You even promised me once that you'd remember to treat me like the adult I actually am, which you also haven't actually kept. You keep saying you put me first, but you don't even see the real me anymore, Dean, just some-- some epic Little Brother ideal you've cooked up in your head that I'm forever going to fall short of because I outgrew it. You don't trust me, you lied to me, you don't even seem to really want me around!" The words were harsh, he knew, but they felt all too right to Sam, and seeing Dean flinch was almost as bad as confirmation. "You don't want me around. You just don't want me to leave."

"So that's it, then?" Dean asked, the familiar bitter anger finally entering his voice. It nearly made Sam smile except for how sick he felt that he'd actually missed it. "You're doing this to get away from me? Dying is your new Stanford?"

"Don't be an idiot, Dean," Sam said, his voice and expression flat and tired. He barely had the energy to stand. Arguing with Dean when he'd already made up his mind was futile, but it just wasn't in Sam to let it lie without trying to at least make it a little better for him. "We share a Heaven. As long as you don't do something stupid like make another deal, you'll see me again when you get there, and I'll have all my happy memories of you to keep me company until you do. I'm doing this for Kevin. Because he's counting on me, and you're not the only person I've let down I need to make it up to."

"Sammy--"

"And don't you dare be a jerk to him about it," Sam continued, lifting his hand. The blood was starting to pool and the glow of light was beginning to pulse. "This is still my choice. You found it in yourself to respect that once... _I'm_ begging _you_ now to do it one more time." He made himself meet Dean's eyes, hoping that both his pleading and his conviction were clear to his brother's sight. "You say there's nothing you'd put in front of me... does that include you?"

Green eyes waivered, then dropped. Dean swallowed once, hard, and then the hand he had on Sam's shoulder squeezed, tight but brief, before dropping as well. "Guess this is it, then," he muttered, more to the floor than to Sam's face. He drew in a breath, hesitated, then let it out in a sigh and looked up again. "See you on the other side, Sammy-- Sam."

"Don't follow me up too quickly, jerk," Sam couldn't help but caution, and saw the brief twitch of a smile on his brother's lips.

"Bitch." Dean hesitated again, just for a moment, and then stepped back to lean against one of the supports. Not leaving, just stepping back and letting Sam do what he felt he had to do. Staying close in case Sam needed him one last time, but still at least trying to let go. Because Sam had asked.

Sam turned back to Crowley, tucking the knife away into his belt, and cupped the back of the demon's head with his hand instead. Crowley looked up, eyes wet and red, but focused and aware.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, barely audible.

"I know," Sam answered. "It's almost over."

He started over with the chant, the words coming even more easily now. His hand flexed, the shallow cut on his palm cracking open again to let the blood well forth, and as he tipped his hand over the glowing liquid dripped down into Crowley's mouth. Crowley choked and swallowed, more out of reflex than desire, and his eyes flashed with glowing red just once more before the glow faded and fresh clear tears spilled down his cheeks.

Sam only had a moment to take it in before his world exploded in fire.

 

**I** NTENSE SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITY that affects multiple planes of existence cannot be fully perceived by human senses. All Dean and Crowley could see through their respective tears was the way Sam became lit up with amber light before flashing outwards in a hard pulse of power that rattled the windows. At the same time, Sam's body collapsed to the stone floor of the church like a puppet whose strings had been suddenly, ruthlessly snapped, the six-foot-five figure too thin and frail for its height lying crumpled against the chair in which Crowley sat restrained and silently grieving his loss.

Standing just inside the doorway to the church, silent and unnoticed on the spiritual plane, the Reaper who had been called to attend to the brewing situation watched with awe. Sam's soul, already brighter than most human souls, became nearly blinding in its radiance. The glow of Heaven's darker powers splintered and fractured, taking pieces of the soul with it and rushing outwards, seeking out cracks and fissures and Gates all around the globe and sealing them shut so that no one without a Key could ever cross the boundaries into or out of Hell ever again. The Reaper held such a Key, as did her comrades, but she would not need it now. The soul whose pieces were slowly drawn back together in the wake of the Great Work's conclusion was not destined for Hell, and it would be her honor to see Sam Winchester on to the next step in his existence.

She stepped carefully between the former demon King of Hell and the man Heaven had once hailed as Righteous, cupping her hands above the fallen body as bits of soul slowly began to return and coalesce.

_W-what's going on?_ The voice was thin and faint, echoing more across her higher awareness than in her ears. _What happened?_

_You completed the Trials,_ she answered, her fingers curling around the soul as its light strengthened. _I'm here to take you onward._ A little apologetically, she added, _Himself wanted to be the one to collect you, but something big has come up and he couldn't make it._

_Oh,_ Sam answered. _I'm sorry... who are you?_

_You can call me Ella, kiddo,_ the Reaper answered with a chuckle. It wasn't the name she'd been given once a long time ago, but it was close enough, and it was how her fellows knew her now. The last little tendrils of soul were finally rejoining the whole. It was time to leave.

_Why do I feel so weird?_ the hunter asked her, making her smile slightly as she cupped the soul close to her chest and spread her wings. There were wards all over the church - a sensible precaution for anyone attempting to complete the Trials, though it complicated matters of ascension - and she would have to be careful.

_You're no longer bound by physical form,_ she explained in an absent tone as they dipped and twisted around the crisscrossed web of warding and passed through the roof of the church and into the open air. _You might remember seeing a soul in your current state when you completed the Second Trial-- uh-oh._

_Uh-oh? That doesn't sound good,_ he said, sounding worried, and she couldn't help but agree. All around them, streaks of fire and light and Grace were dropping from the sky, raining down to Earth in a massive, uncoordinated rush-- no, in an uncoordinated _Fall!_

_The angels,_ she whispered, staring upwards in horror. _All of them... they're Falling!_

_What can we do?_ he asked immediately, filling her chest with warmth for this compassionate soul she carried. The warmth shifted to determination and she hugged the soul closer, drawing him as close as possible without breaching personal barriers.

_Hold on tight!_

She took off, rocketting upwards with as much speed as she could manage. Reapers like her were technically a lower Order of angel, but many of them had been human once and had a few tricks their "older brothers" didn't know. Ella might not have ever needed those skills, but the human she had once been was all too used to having to dodge "attacks" while running at breakneck speeds, and she brought that experience to bear now with a vengeance. Ducking and rolling and spinning out of the way of Falling angels barely even slowed her down. She was almost through the crush when she saw it. _The Gates are swinging shut?!_

_Is that bad?_ Sam asked, reminding her again of the importance of her mission now. She had to get the soul she carried through the Gates of Heaven before they shut and trapped everyone and everything on the outside. There were no provisions for souls and Reapers if Heaven's Gates ever closed, because that was _never supposed to happen_. She couldn't stop it from happening now - she doubted that anyone could - but if she could just get Sam through the Gates in time....

_Sam, listen to me closely,_ she said, angling her wings and picking up speed, less concerned now with maneuvering in the face of this. _When you get inside, you find Ash. I know you've done it before. Tell him some dick has shut the Gates and you need to get to the Garden. Do you understand?_

_I... yes?_ He sounded confused and a little scared. _But why--_

_Then God be with you, kiddo,_ she interrupted. They were out of time. _Good luck!_

With that, she tucked herself up, holding Sam's soul in one hand as she drew back her arm and, with a quick prayer of her own, hurled the shining ball of Sam Winchester as hard as she could through the Gates. She just had time to see him slip through the last bare bit of space before something slammed into her head-on and sent her careening back down to Earth with the rest.


	2. Chapter 2

**L** ANDING IN HEAVEN didn't actually feel like landing, not in the sense that Sam was used to. He thought he might have bounced a couple of times - there were a couple of brief, dizzying impressions of scenes he didn't recognize, memories that weren't his - but when he came to a stop inside Heaven, it was more like opening his eyes from having accidentally fallen asleep sitting up and jerking awake again after his head dropped too far too fast.

He was standing in what looked like a random tacky motel room. Looking around gave him no clues, because rooms like this tended to blur together over the years, but he could feel the familiarity here and it itched at him. Something about this place, this room, was important enough to have been pulled from his mind to be a part of his personal Heaven, but what? Why? Dean wasn't even here, the second bed neatly made and unslept-in despite the familiar shape of his brother's duffel bag near the foot.

Wingbeats sounded from behind him, faint and almost completely inaudible despite the quiet of the room, but Sam had long become attuned to listening for those wingbeats. A moment later, he heard Castiel's voice calling his name, and he turned, eyes wide. "Castiel..."

The angel stood straight, his suit and coat more immaculate than Sam had seen them in a long time, even with the tie slightly askew. The air crackled and sparked with settling Grace just barely out of focus from normal perception, and Sam caught the briefest outline of huge wings folding behind the angel's borrowed vessel, just like he had seen before many times, though it had always startled him at the beginning. As Sam turned towards him, Castiel's expression brightened into one of relief and happiness, and he stepped towards Sam, arms rising as if to reach for him and wings opening again to stretch forwards.

All at once, Sam knew exactly when this was. Dean had been in San Francisco to see a woman about a dragon sword, and Sam had taken the chance that he was alone to call for Castiel, not even really believing the angel would come if he was busy fighting a war and Sam's request to see him was so trivial, his motivations so disingenuous.... but Castiel had come, had answered his hesitant call for himself without Dean anywhere near, and looked so truly glad to see him, Sam, that it had sent a flare of heat through his chest more strongly than anything since that first initial meeting with his brother's savior had ever done. Castiel had wanted to hug him then. Between the sudden surge of feelings, the guilt over his plan to extract information about his missing year, and the skitter of electric Grace against nerves in his soul still raw behind Death's Wall from centuries of torture at Lucifer's hands, Sam had dodged that hug and regretted it ever since.

He didn't dodge the hug this time, taking two quick strides forward to sweep Castiel up in his arms, holding him tightly the way he had always wanted to but had never dared. Castiel's arms came up the rest of the way to wrap around Sam in return, enveloping the hunter in the scents of ozone and pine and petrichor. The crackle and snap of Castiel's Grace was muted, however, a memory of a more distant feeling drawn subconsciously from other memories of being around Castiel when he was hale and healthy and not scattered inside his own mind and even more disconnected from his vessel than usual. It reminded Sam sharply that this was just an illusion created from his memories by Heaven... that it wasn't  _ real _ .

"Sam?" the Castiel in his arms asked softly, drawing back enough to look up at him with gentle concern. (Had the real Cas ever looked at him like that?) "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Sam started to answer, then changed his mind and shook his head. He couldn't bring himself to lie to Castiel, even if this wasn't the real Castiel. "Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. I completed the Demon Trials to close Hell, and I thought everything was happening the way it was supposed to, but Kevin didn't get a chance to translate the last few lines and Metatron apparently lied about a lot of things, and now all the angels have Fallen and I'm here and I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

"How can I help?" Castiel asked, his expression turning earnest. "Anything you need, if I can provide it."

It was such a Castiel thing to say, even as far off script as they were from the original memory, that Sam couldn't help but smile even as he struggled to remember what the Reaper, Ella, had said. She had been scared and insistent, and had said something about a garden... no,  _ the _ Garden! "I need to talk to Ash," he said aloud. Ella had been very clear about that part.

Castiel blinked. "Isn't your friend Ash dead?"

"Yeah, well, so'm I," Sam pointed out with a half shrug. The angel blinked again.

"Condolences," he offered, making Sam snicker just a little.

"Thanks, Cas," he said as the brief burst of amusement faded into a fond smile. Castiel hummed faintly, but didn't otherwise answer, eyes scanning the fabricated hotel room as his brows drew together in a pensive frown. He made no move to either release Sam or step away from him, so Sam allowed himself to indulge in the unexpectedly comfortable feeling of holding Castiel.

"What if you called him?" the angel asked after a moment, his gaze settling on the table between the beds. He glanced up at Sam and, seeing the hunter's confusion, elaborated. "Heaven is extremely sensitive to suggestion from the souls who reside here. Did you not once tell me that your friend's personal Heaven closely resembles a former hunters' bar?"

"The Roadhouse," Sam confirmed, nodding. "So, you're suggesting that if I use the phone here to dial the number for the Roadhouse and, what, believe strongly that it will work, that'll connect me to Ash's Heaven?"

"Is it not worth attempting?" Castiel asked, raising his eyebrows pointedly. "If the angels are Falling while you are dead and Dean is not, then I would imagine you would not wish to simply wait here for Ash to contact you himself."

It was a fair point. Something about what Castiel said caught at Sam's attention, however, and he frowned. "How do you know Dean's not dead, too?"

"Because he is not here," Castiel answered patiently, doing a pointed visual sweep of the room before giving Sam a rather dry look. "I can hardly say that I mind, as I'm certain Dean would have interrupted us by now and insisted you and I cease our embrace if he were here, but I believe I know you well enough to recognize that if Dean  _ were _ dead and thus here your priority would be getting to him rather than to Ash, assuming he did not take the initiative to come and find you first."

"Fair enough," Sam admitted. He flexed his fingers against Castiel's back, just below where he could feel a phantom brush of feathers, and watched the angel's eyelids flutter. "You're not... just a memory, are you?"

Castiel opened his eyes and beamed up at Sam, more brightly than any expression Sam had ever seen on the real Castiel's face. "Not only a memory, no," he agreed, sounding oddly proud. "While my initial appearance was brought about by the memory of your encounter with me in the past, when you embraced me your memory impression connected to the shard of my Grace nestled within your soul."

"I have some of your-- Castiel's-- Grace in me?" Sam asked, startled. He hesitated. "Is that like--"

"Possession? No," the memory-construct said, shaking his head. "The shard of my Grace in you is very small. It would be more accurate to say that it is similar to the mark I placed on Dean save that I chose to mark you as under my care rather than be assigned to the task."

"And that makes a difference?" Sam asked, brows drawing together in puzzlement. "That it was your choice?"

Castiel met his eyes, hesitated, then lowered them again. If the angel were more human, more prone to certain involuntary biological responses, Sam might well have expected him to start blushing. "Only if you want it to."

"What about what you want?" Sam asked, his frown becoming more pronounced. If Castiel thought he was going to put all of the decision making on Sam for both of them, he didn't understand what it really meant to be a  _ partner _ . Castiel, however, was shaking his head.

"I'm a memory, Sam," he reminded the hunter, smiling a little sadly. "My Grace in you gives me a bit more leeway and agency than I might have otherwise, but I'm still just one of Heaven's constructs based around your happier recollections of me." He looked down again, then looked towards the bedside table and the room's telephone. "You should call Ash now...."

"What happens to you if I let go?" Sam asked, his arms tightening reflexively around Castiel - the memory-construct of Castiel - as if the angel might fly away. He loosened his grip almost immediately, an apology already forming on his lips, but when Castiel looked up at him again he looked shyly pleased.

"I can't answer that," the memory-construct answered. He sounded gently apologetic, and Sam could almost believe that he really was. "I know that we are 'off-script' in this memory because you know it, but I cannot know what will happen when we are no longer in contact."

"Can I take you out with me?" Sam asked, then flushed. That was probably a little too far, no matter what this Castiel had implied about enjoying the hug so far.

This Castiel was still smiling up at him. "You'll take my Grace with you when you go. It's rooted deeply in your soul, so deep that even the damage inflicted upon you in the Cage could not root it out--"

"Because I was protecting it," Sam breathed, eyes going wide as the flare of fragmented memory hit. The walls of the hotel room wavered and Sam clutched more tightly to Castiel until they solidified again. "I was protecting you. Lucifer could do whatever the hell he wanted to me. I wasn't letting him have you."

"Perhaps when you see me - the real me - you might ask if I feel the same," Castiel suggested, practically beaming up at him. The smile faded as the memory-construct looked off towards the telephone again. "Whatever caused the angels to Fall must be tied up in me somehow. I can feel an echo of my Grace here in Heaven somewhere, but...."

"But if all the angels were ejected, why is your Grace still here?" Sam finished, nodding with a frown. "Right. Guess I'd better call Ash." He hesitated, though, and Castiel shot him a dry look before gently disentangling them and taking hold of Sam's hand instead.

"You need not let go of me completely just yet, if you do not want to," the angel told him, making Sam chuckle with sheepish amusement.

The phone didn't look any different from the various motel phones Sam had become familiar with over the years. He lifted the receiver and listened to the dial tone, then carefully punched in the code written on the top of the phone for dialing out and heard the dial tone change accordingly. Taking a deep breath, he carefully dialed the number for the Roadhouse. The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.

Midway through the fourth ring, the call connected and a breathless male voice practically yelled into the receiver,  _ "Hello? Hello? Damn it, I swear to Christ, you better still be on the line--" _

"Are you sure you should be swearing to Christ in Heaven, Ash?" Sam broke in, unable to suppress a grin. "The dude might just answer."

_ "Sam?!" _ Ash exclaimed. A moment later, his voice came through more faintly as if he'd turned away from the phone.  _ "Hey, everybody! It's Sam Winchester!" _

Sam blinked and pulled the receiver away from his ear to stare at it in surprise. The sudden surge of cheering from the other line at Ash's announcement could still be heard even with several inches of distance between his ear and the receiver. Beside him, still holding his hand, Castiel looked almost smug at the response, as if the angel (memory-construct of the angel, he reminded himself) had expected nothing less. It took almost a full minute before the cheering faded and Sam could hear Ash calling his name again. He quickly brought the receiver back up and answered, "Still here, Ash."

_ "Sam, man, you have no idea how glad we are to hear from you!" _ the hunters' hacker said with fervent sincerity.  _ "We all heard the chatter over in Angeltown pick up when you completed the Trials, and then suddenly there was a lot of screaming and now Heaven's practically empty of angels except the one dude who keeps laughing! What the hell is going on?!" _

"It's a long story," Sam answered, the humor dropping from his voice as his expression went grim. "Cliff notes version is that an angel named Metatron, calls himself the Scribe of God? He's probably the one you hear laughing. He tricked Castiel, the angel who helped us avert the Apocalypse, into helping him do something that Cas was told would close Heaven so the angels could sort out their own shit without it spilling onto humanity all over the place. Instead, it looks like the spell kicked all the angels out at the same time it locked Heaven down. My Reaper just barely got me through the Gates in time and I don't know what's happened to Cas."

_ "What can we do to help?" _ Ash responded immediately, matching his tone to Sam's. Sam felt a surge of warmth for the man, even as he tried not to think too closely on who all the "we" might be referring to. The cheering had been strange enough, not to mention disconcerting.

"I need to get into the Garden," Sam answered. "Last time Dean and I were up here, Joshua rerouted us in directly, but he can't do that if he Fell with the rest of the angels. Ella said you could do it."

There was a long pause. When Ash spoke again, his voice was low and somber.  _ "Ella?" _

"The Reaper who got me up here," Sam said, frowning slightly. "I didn't see her face, I was in, uh, compacted soul mode, but that's what she told me to call her." His frown deepened. "I hope she's okay... Do you know her? Who is she?"

_ "Whoa, whoa!" _ Ash broke in. Sam blinked, because he hadn't thought he'd asked that many questions, but then Ash went on,  _ "Lemme bring Sam through to the Roadhouse first, okay? We can play catch-up while I'm getting him that back door into the Garden!" _

"How many people are we talking about here, Ash?" Sam asked. He thought he did a decent job of keeping his sudden surge of nerves out of his voice, but Castiel's tightening grip on his hand indicated that the angel-slash-memory could tell the difference.

_ "No one you have to worry about starting shit," _ Ash assured him, as if that could possibly make Sam feel any less anxious.  _ "Promise." _

"If you say so," Sam answered, trying not to sound as dubious as he felt. Castiel could clearly tell anyway, because the angel squeezed the hand he still held in silent reassurance. "What do you need me to do?"

_ "Just get ready to open the door when you hear the knock, okay? I'm tracing your signal now, so it should just be a couple of minutes before I can get you a shortcut here," _ Ash told him.

Sam nodded, even though he knew Ash couldn't see him, and leaned against Castiel when the angel moved close enough to hook his chin over Sam's shoulder. Sam felt like he should have been blushing when he realized what he was doing - damn Heaven's suggestive resonance! - but he didn't try to move away. It was his Heaven, after all, though looking the real Castiel in the eyes might become problematic if he allowed himself to take too many liberties with this memory-construct of the angel.

Fortunately for his sanity, Ash chose that moment to speak up again, saying,  _ "Okay, got the connection. You ready?" _

"Ready when you are, dude," Sam assured him, despite the way his fingers tightened on Castiel's hand.

_ "Stand by," _ Ash told him, and there was a click as he hung up his end of the phone line. Sam blinked as the phone produced a credible dial tone to further signify the end of the connection, but hung up the receiver as well.

"You aren't leaving me behind, you know," Castiel remarked from beside Sam. When Sam looked over at the angel, he offered a slight smile. "You're gripping my hand very tightly."

"Oh!" Sam winced and immediately relaxed his grip, though he couldn't bring himself to release Castiel's hand completely. It was clear that Castiel noticed, too, because he inclined his head even as he brought his free hand up to cover where his and Sam's hands were clasped. Sam couldn't help the flush of mingled heat and embarrassment at the way the action reminded him of their first meeting. The lines of Castiel's smile were both knowing and sad.

"You aren't leaving me behind," he repeated, lifting Sam's hand with both of his and pressing the tangle of fingers and palms gently to the center of Sam's chest. "I'm right here, always. I suspect you could even follow my echo within your soul and let it lead you to the rest of me."

"Is that what you want me to do?" Sam couldn't help but ask.

"It's what you want to do," the memory construct told him with a knowing tilt of his head that made Sam want to bury his face in his hands, despite the way they were still tangled up with Castiel's. "And perhaps you will do it... later. For now, you are going to get up and walk through that door to be greeted by Ash and whoever else is waiting for you on your way to the Garden."

He stood up, then, and stepped backwards without letting go of Sam's hands. Sam let the angel pull him easily to his feet, marvelling at the memory construct getting the impressive angelic strength right along with everything else. When Castiel moved to towards the hotel room door, however, Sam hesitated. "Cas... I...."

"I know," Castiel answered in the same low tone, glancing up from beneath the dark fringe of perpetually tousled hair with a solemn expression. He opened his mouth to say something, but right then the expected knock came and they both turned to look at the door. "You have to go."

"I have to go," Sam agreed.  _ I love you, _ he wanted to say. Castiel squeezed his hands, as if he could hear it anyway, and then let go. Taking a deep breath and refusing to look around to see if the angelic memory construct was still there or if he had disappeared, Sam squared his shoulders and strode towards the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**E** VERYTHING HURT, WHICH was Castiel's first clue that something was very wrong with him. The second clue was how dark and dim his surroundings were, even with his vessel's eyes open. Worse still was the deafening silence beneath the roaring sounds filling his vessel's ears, the complete lack of any of his siblings' Voices the way he had not felt since he had been cut off from Heaven during the Apocalypse. Instinctively, he tried to lift his wings, to reach out with his Grace and fly to where he had left Dean--

Nothing happened. His wings, which he had thought simply numbed beyond his ability to sense through the pain in his vessel, were gone. His vessel - his body - ached from the impact of being shoved out of Heaven, but the tattered shred of Grace left to him to hold his sense of self within this body had apparently been just enough to keep him from serious physical injury, and that was hopefully enough to anchor him along with the Grace left marking Dean and Sam's souls--

_Sam!_

Castiel struggled to his feet, limbs and joints protesting every movement. He shoved aside the physical pain as best he could. Sam had been completing the Demon Trials when he left Dean, and if Metatron had lied... if Dean had not gotten to his brother in time....

A streak of light, bright as a ball of flames against the darkening sky, caught Castiel's attention, drawing his eyes upwards. The first streak was joined by another. And another. Ten, twenty, soon hundreds of flaming blazing lights were visible, screaming down towards the earth from the heavens... no, from _Heaven_ . Castiel could only gape in horror at the sight of every Angel in Heaven being mercilessly ejected by Metatron's spell. _My Grace... This is all my fault.... Metatron lied, tricked me... Oh Father, Sam, please be alright!_

Arrested by the terrible sight as he was, Castiel almost failed to notice when one of those bright and burning forms split off from the rest and changed direction. Far from an uncoordinated plummet, this brother was clearly flying under their own power. Even more alarming was the size of the Angel, which Castiel only began to become sensible to as the Angel - at least a Seraph, but unrecognizable in this state with the limits of human sight however thankful Castiel might be _later_ that he retained Jimmy Novak's rare ability to gaze upon an Angel's True Form - was heading straight for Castiel's location.

Fear gripped him, digging claws into his chest and cutting short the breath Castiel now depended upon to survive. He stumbled backwards, tripping and scrambling to get away from what could only be an attack, a powerful Seraph come to extract just retribution for the plight now facing all of their numbers, the bronze halo filling the field with light so bright that even Castiel was forced to bring up his arms to shield as much from the brilliance as from the expected blow--

**_Whoa! Cas, calm down!_ **

Castiel froze.

The Angel above him came no closer.

Slowly, Castiel lowered his arms to peer with dazzled eyes up at the Angel in awe. They were huge, much bigger than a Seraph, even compressed down to fit within mortal perceptions. The halo which illuminated the clearing was bronze, but not uniformly so, shifting with bursts of gold and streaks of green. As Castiel watched, the Angel compressed down further, becoming closer to vaguely humanoid in shape, arms lifted in something like placation or... Castiel shied away from the thought that the gesture might be one of supplication.

 **_It's just me, dude,_ ** the Voice spoke, the tolling bells of church steeples resonating beneath a rumbling growl that almost seemed more mechanical than animal. **_Uh, surprise? Fear not?_ **

"Sam?" Castiel breathed out, and watched as the colors of the halo brightened and warmed in what could only be a truly Angelic smile.

**_Hey, Castiel._ **

 

 **T** HE BIGGEST CONTRAST between the motel room and the Roadhouse was the noise. Aside from Sam and Castiel, the motel room had been quiet, any ambient noise muted to the point of imperceptibility by his own limited remembrances. Stepping through the door of the motel and into the Roadhouse felt almost like a physical assault from the sheer volume of sound. He flinched back out of reflex, reaching again for a weapon he didn't think he was even carrying - _could_ he carry a gun in Heaven? - and then went still as Bobby's familiar gruff voice rose above the din, saying, "Alright, ya idjits, settle down an' let the boy get his bearings! Most'a you lot know better than t' rush a hunter!"

Immediately, the press of sound dimmed and Sam felt the constriction building in his chest begin to ease. It took him a moment longer before he could relax his ready stance and let his hands drop away from the weaponless spot where he would have otherwise been carrying his usual gun. That drew a few knowing chuckles from the hunters who probably recognized the posture, and Sam had to duck his head before he could bring himself to look up through the fall of his hair at the assembled crowd.

Bobby was expected after hearing his voice, but it was still a surge of relief to see him standing there near Sam's elbow. The urge to just fling his arms around the older hunter who had been so much more of a father to him than his actual Dad was strong, but he resisted... right up until Bobby caught his eye and clapped a hand on his shoulder to pull him in for a hug. The breath left Sam's lungs (or what passed for breath and lungs in Heaven, fuck, this was still confusing even after having done this before!) and he clung to the older hunter.

"You made it," he mumbled against the familiar flannel.

"Thanks to you," Bobby murmured back, giving him an awkward couple of pats. He made no move to pull away, but Sam released him anyway, knowing how awkward the other man felt about displaying affection. Sure enough, Bobby was looking just shy of outright uncomfortable. In a gruff mumble, he added, "Wasn't wanting to see you up here quite this soon, mind, but I'm glad you made it, too."

"Hear, hear!" a woman's voice rang out. Sam turned just in time to catch an armful of bouncy blonde with a firm smile and a firmer grip. "Sam! Check you out!"

"Jo?!" Sam gaped.

"In the flesh!" she winked, stepping back to grin up at him. "Well, what passes for flesh up here. I mean, for whatever reason I'm still picturing myself with that scar I got from that ghost in Terre Haut, but man am I glad it doesn't pull at me anymore!"

"Jo..." He could actually feel his throat closing up and his eyes stinging. "Jo, I'm sorry, I... If we hadn't gone to Carthage..."

"Oh, Sam, no!" Jo shook her head, earnest sympathy flooding her face. "Don't you dare blame yourself for what happened! Me getting killed by hellhounds was on me, not you. It's not your fault that Mom and I got killed, and it's definitely not your fault that the plan didn't work."

That... was not what he had expected to hear her say at all, especially after his hallucinations during the blood detox after Famine. "But--"

"Ah-ah! That one is not on you, especially since it was Dean's plan. Plus, way we all heard it, the plan that worked in the end was yours, and here you are giving your life for the world again." She punched him lightly in the shoulder. "Quit it! You're making me feel like a slacker!"

"Uh," Sam floundered, torn between laughing hysterically and wanting to sink into the floor from embarrassment. He hadn't wanted to make his friends - or anyone else, for that matter - feel inadequate! It was just... taking responsibility. He'd broken the world, so he was going to do whatever it took for his insignificant human life to help fix it again. "I'm, uh, pretty sure that I won't be giving my life for the world again," he offered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Since I'm, y'know, _here_."

"Don't bet on that," said a voice that had Sam going completely, paralyzingly still. "Winchesters seem to have a revolving door afterlife. Not that it's always your choice, I know, but the fact remains."

Sam couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. Not that he needed to breathe up here, but the fact remained that he could not make himself any more still than he was. That voice was one he hadn't heard since Before. Before the Cage. Michael had abandoned his Vessel once trapped, and the ensuing fighting between Archangels had quickly vaporized the body, but Sam still had the image burned into his soul. The image Michael had taken when he tired of Sam's eyes burning within his skull, the image that had ripped into him for his faults and failures whenever Lucifer deigned to allow his older brother to play with his only toy--

He was distantly aware of Jo shifting to one side - not leaving, only moving aside so that she was no longer in front of him - and then he was there. Sandy hair, blue-green eyes, Winchester dimpled smirk.... The smirk faltered and faded, lips parting, moving in time with the return of the voice that said nearly-incomprehensible things. "Hey, hey, take it easy, man... Sam, it's just me, not _him_ . Just _me_."

"Adam?"

The name was pulled from Sam without his conscious direction as little more than a thready gasp. He flinched almost immediately, and then watched as the look in those blue-green eyes became pained and sad. "Christ, what did that winged dick do to you wearing my face?" came the nearly inaudible mutter which Sam could only hear from being so inexorably focused on the sound. "Sam, I... Swear to Bobby, Sam, it's really me. No ghouls, no angel tricks, just me."

Later, Sam would not be able to say who moved in what way. For what seemed like only a second, the world wavered around him and blurred, and then Adam's arms were around him and his arms were around Adam, and his hands were fisted in the back of Adam's shirt as he babbled choked and muffled apologies into his younger brother's shoulder. Adam's arms tightened and he began rubbing Sam's back, a distantly familiar method of comfort that still felt strange coming from his younger brother.. "Shh, Sam.... _I'm_ sorry. I didn't give you and Dean a fair chance, and then you still came and tried to bail me out. And you don't get to take any blame for Michael taking me anyway, 'cause I'd already signed over the rights to my body before they even resurrected me."

"I looked for you," Sam confessed around the block in his throat. "Any time they left me alone, I looked, but I couldn't... Dean said Death made him choose between us, but I don't remember seeing you... I couldn't find you...."

"Turns out when you throw a holy fire Molotov at an Archangel, it gets difficult to be keeping the soul of the vessel around," Adam murmured, still rubbing small circles between Sam's shoulder blades. "Best guess I have is he was too panicked about what was happening to hang on to me, so I got shunted back up here. You don't remember me being in the Cage with you because I wasn't there."

"Not in the Cage?" Sam repeated, needing to be sure. Adam's arms squeezed around his ribs as he patted his back.

"Not in the Cage," his younger brother confirmed. "I've spent the last few years Earth-time going back and forth between my Heaven, Mom's Heaven, and here."

Okay, the first two made sense, especially if he'd figured out the trick of moving between Heavens, but... "Why here?" Sam asked, pulling back a little to look at Adam uncertainly. "I mean, these guys are awesome, but this is pretty much a hunter's bar..."

"It's also where my Reaper brought me after your angel blew _him_ up," Adam told him, a wry smile spreading across his face. "Your buddy Ash is the one who got me into Mom's Heaven and invited me to come back. Besides," he added, a mischievous spark in his eyes, "my big brothers are hunters. Where better to get all the good stories about what you and Dean were really like to counter Zachariah's bullshit?"

"I'm not sure I want to know," Sam muttered. Guilt was stabbing at him again. How many of their friends had he and Dean gotten killed over the years? How many people had died before their times because of their mistakes, _his_ mistakes?

Jo, who hadn't gone that far, reached up and smacked the back of Sam's head. "Quit that!" she told him, unrepentant in the face of his wounded look in her direction. "You did not get us killed. Most of us are hunters, and that comes with an early expiration date."

"Not just hunters," Sam couldn't help but point out, voice strained from speaking around the lump clogging his throat and throttling the urge to shout. Didn't she see? It was never just hunters who suffered, but people in general, civilians and innocents whose lives were cut short by werewolves and vampires and shapeshifters and demons and angels--

"That sounds like my cue," another woman spoke up. Sam turned his head and nearly swallowed his tongue. Sarah Blake looked back at him, several years older than the last time he had seen her, and pointed a finger at his face. "Don't you dare blame yourself for my death. That demon was the one who decided to kill me. _You_ , however, _saved_ me."

"And if we hadn't, Crowley wouldn't have come after you to get to us!" Sam burst out in anguish.

"And if he hadn't, I could just as easily have been hit by a car or shot by a strung-out junkie trying to rob my father's gallery," Sarah fired back, folding her arms across her chest. "Get this through your head and make it stick there, Sam: you are _not_ responsible for the choices made by demons, no matter what they try and make you believe!"

"I couldn't have said it better myself!"

Sam's heart stopped. "...Jess?"


	4. Chapter 4

**I** T FELT LIKE Dean's heart stopped when that weird orange glow enveloped Sam. The knife fell from lax fingers to clatter against the stone floor as the glow seemed to pulse and disappear. Then Sam was falling, dropping like one of those old Pinocchio puppets-- no strings.

No life.

No--

Dean scrambled away from the wall, desperate to reach his brother. The jolt of stone and bone colliding barely registered as he dropped to his knees beside the body, fingers flying to the carotid artery. He couldn't move, didn't even dare breathe, until the faintest flutter of a pulse echoed beneath his fingertips more than once.

"Is he...?"

"He's alive!" Dean gasped, slumping over Sam's chest in his relief. The chest that was just barely rising and falling beneath his head. He fisted his hands in the flannel - too loose, Sammy had lost so much weight from these fucking Trials - and held on as the world spun dangerously around him, grateful beyond measure that his one constant point of stability was still there with him. "He's alive."

"Oh, thank... somebody. Huh... Who do you give thanks to when you know God isn't listening?" Dean went still. In his burst of panic, he had very nearly forgotten that Sam had not been alone in the church when Dean had come barrelling in. He raised his head, tracing the line from Sam's open and bloody hand towards the polished black shoes, up the line of crisp-creased black slacks, skipping over the chains that wrapped around a suit-clad chest and stared into the face of the former King of Hell. Crowley blinked back at him, a fresh splash of clear saline Dean couldn't bring himself to call tears spilling down his cheeks. "Never was much for praying the first time I was human, and not sure there's anyone I want listening now anyway."

"You're still alive," Dean said, measuring the words even as he spoke them. Crowley's shoulders lifted slightly, making the chains around him clink.

"For the moment," the former demon said, his expression not so much unconcerned as uncaring. Dean felt himself bristling when Crowley turned his head and looked directly at him, dark eyes dull with pain and fatigue. "So's your brother. You want him to stay that way, best get his hand bandaged and the rest of him up off the stone floor and back to your secret clubhouse and your overprotective angel."

Dean's fingers twitched towards his gun before he made them stay still. His father's "shoot first, ask questions later" orders had never gone over well with Sammy, and after everything Sam had said to him, after he'd completed the Trials and somehow lived through it in spite of the warnings otherwise, Dean was done doing things his little brother didn't like. Besides, right now Dean really wanted some answers. "What's gonna happen if I just leave you here?"

"I'll sit here in chains until someone comes along to let me out, I imagine," came the lackluster response. "Well, me or my corpse, depending on how many days that takes."

"Is that supposed to make me take pity on you and let you go?" Dean couldn't help but snark.

"I'd be insulted if you did," Crowley drawled back with the barest flicker of his more familiar attitude. "Would you just get a move on? It would be a tragic waste if your brother perished from infection or pneumonia after surviving everything else Heaven and Hell have thrown at him."

"Careful there, you almost sound like you respect us or something," Dean muttered. The former demon had a point, though, so Dean got to work wrapping Sam's hand with the gauze he'd had in his pocket just in case.

He nearly faltered when Crowley answered him, voice low and serious despite the rasp. "I have always had far more respect for you than any other demon who didn't buy into Azazel's 'Boy King' schtick, Winchester." Then he huffed. "Thought I was the only one smart enough not to underestimate you both, too. Guess I was still short of the mark..."

_ Lucky us, _ Dean thought to himself as he carefully hoisted Sam's limp body into his arms and turned to carry him out to the Impala. The sun had been setting when Cas had brought him to the church before flying off to Heaven, and it was dark enough to see the stars coming out as Dean carefully laid Sam's unconscious body in the Impala's back seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Dean could see something bright streaking across the darkening sky.  _ Make a wish, I guess... wait. _

Dean pulled himself back out of the car and stared upwards as another streak of light appeared. And another. Another.... He broke into a run back to the church. Crowley jerked in surprise when he burst through the door, but Dean couldn't bring himself to care about having surprised the former demon as he grabbed the chains and hauled him up. "We gotta go!"

"What?" Give him credit, the former demon got with the program quickly enough, managing to keep his feet under him even with the chains hampering his movement. Dean spared a brief thought to curse the lack of time to find the keys (not that he was sure he really wanted to unchain Crowley; the guy was still plenty dangerous as a human even without the demonic powers) and got an arm around him to support his weight.

"There's some kinda weird meteor shower going on out there!" he huffed, hoping to distract both himself and Crowley from the question of why he had even come back for the guy, much less why he was helping him. "Was that supposed to happen?"

Crowley went briefly still, the lack of motion sudden enough that Dean turned his head to look at him. What he saw in the former demon's face wasn't reassuring, and neither was the tight urgency in Crowley's voice. "Show me."

It was easier than Dean had feared to get the still-chained man out of the church, even as restricting as the chains were. Crowley could shuffle decently so long as Dean kept an arm around him to keep him upright, and he only made a single pained noise which, when Dean paused to check on him, he excused with "ribs, I'm fine, hurry". It still took several minutes just to get to the door, and Crowley was gasping by the time they emerged into the open air. The sky was awash in light, thousands of glowing streaks lighting up the sky to be much brighter than it should have been for the hour. Dean swallowed, feeling again that deep sense of foreboding.

"What d'ya make of that?" he asked, glancing over at the former demon.

"That's no meteor shower," Crowley said at length, voice caught between gravity and awestruck horror. "The angels... all of them... they're Falling!"

_ Cas, you better fucking be okay, _ Dean found himself praying as he stared up at the sky in renewed horror.  _ Sammy needs you. _

 

**S** AM HAD THOUGHT he had reached the limit of what could surprise him. In retrospect, he really should have anticipated that everything he had been through up to and including dying and being resurrected multiple times was only scratching the surface.

He had known Jess was dead, both intellectually and in his scarred and tattered heart. He had  _ hoped _ that she was in Heaven, because the idea of Jess - sweet, beautiful, sassy Jess, with her bright smiles and golden laughter - the idea of her dragged down into Hell by the demon who'd possessed Brady and killed her on Azazel's orders... that was too cruel to contemplate, even when it made the rounds of his nightmares. Even knowing,  _ hoping _ , that she was in Heaven, it had never once occurred to him that he would see her again. She would be in her personal Heaven, and he - assuming he was allowed back into Heaven again - would be in his shared Heaven with Dean, and never the twain shall meet.

And yet, here she was, looking just the same as he remembered seeing her the night he'd left with Dean for Jericho, albeit in a pair of jeans and what looked like one of his old shirts. She looked almost painfully at home in the recreated Hunters' bar in a way it had never occurred to him to contemplate. Jess was Jess, was part of his life away from Hunting, was taken from him in a brutal move to shove him back into the Hunting life. She'd never been a part of that aspect of his life except in his grief over her loss, and that was probably messing with him more than even seeing Adam had done.

"I can see you trying to make the connection," Jess was saying as she approached him, still smiling that sweet smile of hers that had more often than not led him into doing something crazy and fun that he never would have tried on his own but was always glad he did later. "You've got the same look on your face that you'd get whenever you were trying to decode the correlation between Professor Reynolds's lecture and the sociology textbook."

"You say that like the correlation wasn't usually in the old bastard's demented mind," Sam muttered automatically, making Jess and several of the hunters around them laugh. "Jess... how....?"

"It's kind of a long story. Did you know," she began conversationally, "that our Heavens were originally supposed to be connected?"

Sam's eyes went wide, and he shot a look around the bar for Ash, remembering all too well the last time such a thing had been discussed. Jess's hand on his arm made him freeze, and he swallowed even as she patted his shirt-covered arm.

"Relax, Sam," she soothed. "I know about your Heaven connecting to Dean's. It did before, too, but the gateways or whatever weren't active that first time you came up here because Dean wasn't dead. The time you came up with him--"

"I woke up in a memory with you," Sam breathed, the recollection hitting him like a sledgehammer to the gut. Snapshots of memories were skittering across his awareness, memories he knew had never happened when she was alive because they were speaking candidly about Dean, about his Dad, about hunting--

"And then that sleazy-looking angel showed up and dragged you off somewhere," Jess said, provoking a wave of curses and uncomplimentary muttering from the hunters listening in. "When I tried to find the road that would lead me back to you, the way was blocked. By the time my kicking up a fuss attracted the attention of Ash, you and Dean were gone again."

"I didn't even remember having seen you," Sam admitted around the tightness in his throat. "Zachariah made me forget before he dropped me in a memory that barely qualified as happy." And he had spent the years since wondering if it had all been a ploy of Zachariah's to break him and Dean further apart - which it had, damn the bastard - or if even Heaven had been trying to tell him that he, Sam, was not allowed true happiness.  _ Every time I come close, it just gets ripped away again.... _

Warm arms wound around his middle and hugged him tight with the wiry strength born of years hauling heavy textbooks around campus. Jess pressed herself up against his chest and held him, letting her warmth soak into him. Distantly, he was aware of Sarah and Jo and Adam and Bobby forming a half circle around them to shield this painfully private moment from the eyes of the rest of the bar, but almost every other sense he had was being filled with her.

"You big idiot," Jess murmured into his shoulder, tightening her arms around him until he got the hint and hugged her back. "Of course you deserve to be happy! It's not going to be with me, I know, and I promise you that I'm okay with that."

"I still love you... so much," he whispered against her hair. The scent that drifted up to him from her golden locks was familiar, but distantly so instead of sharp and clear, a soul-deep ache that used to live in him constantly that now only twinged when he pressed up against it. His fingers curled into the back of her shirt, the anguish at that realization less than he felt it should have been, and upset for that lack of upset.

"I know," she whispered back to him, her smaller hands rubbing slow circles along the arcs of his shoulder blades and spine, soothing his distress. "I know, Sam. But you love him more, and that's the way it should be now."

"Should I even ask how you know?" he mumbled, heat suffusing his face. She laughed, low and soft next to his ear, and squeezed him again.

"You might as well," she said, drawing back enough to grin up at him. "But it's probably not what you're thinking. Actually, I kind of got the inside scoop, so to speak."

"By which she means she talked to me."

Sam turned his head to look behind him at the man leaning in a casual slump against the wall beside the door. He straightened up as Sam's attention fell on him, but his whole posture remained relaxed and amiable. Tousled black-brown hair framed a tan face made darker by the hint of stubble along his chin and jaw, and setting off the startling blue eyes that weren't quite the right shade to belong to Castiel.

"Hey there, Sam," Jimmy Novak said, and his voice, too, was a lighter timbre than Sam was used to hearing but still matched what he remembered of those harrowing few days spent wondering what had pulled Castiel out and what was going to be coming for all of them next. Seeing him standing there, relaxed and smiling, so soon after seeing the memory of Castiel only highlighted the differences between them, even if Jimmy hadn't been wearing a navy blue sweater and ripped jeans that Sam had never seen before.

Jess giggled from beside him. With a start, Sam realized that he had been staring and flushed, dropping his eyes and trying to look anywhere except at Jimmy without making it obvious that he was doing exactly that. "Hey, uh... Jimmy. Or, um, do you... I probably should have asked what you'd prefer to be called...."

"You had other things to worry about at the time," Jimmy said, a rueful cast to his smile despite the diplomatic words. "Honestly, we all did. Social niceties aren't that important in the face of the oncoming Apocalypse." He pushed away from the wall and stepped closer to Sam and Jess. "I'm fine with you calling me Jimmy. Just about everyone up here does."

"Except me," Jess piped in. "He lets me call him Slim Jim."

"Mostly because I can't stop you," Jimmy drawled, rolling his eyes when Jess stuck out her tongue at him.

"I, uh, think I'll stick to Jimmy," Sam assured him awkwardly. He glanced down at Jess, who gave him a winsome smile back, and raised an eyebrow. "'Inside scoop'?"

"Vessel prerogative," Jimmy answered for her. "I know you and Adam had very different experiences than I did, and you probably remember how I described it the one time we met before." Sam did, and nodded to show it, getting an answering nod. "That really didn't change until after the first time Castiel got blown up--"

"First time?" Sam broke in, unable to keep the alarm out of his voice.

"That I know of," Jimmy amended. "When he stayed with that Prophet guy to keep Raphael from stopping Dean from trying to reach you before, er--"

"Before I set Lucifer free?" Sam finished, resigned to having that brought up. He wasn't expecting to get immediately slapped up the back of his head from at least three different hands, and the resultant yelp was loud and rather embarrassingly high in pitch.

"Before you killed a damn demon, which any one of us would'a been right there on board with at the time given none of us knew killin' her would pop the box!" Bobby growled. "That ain't on you, Sam, that's on all the demons and angels what shoved you down that road while herding your damn fool-headed brother the opposite direction!"

"You didn't start the Apocalypse, Sam," Jimmy told him with a stern tone that reminded Sam keenly of the fact that this man had been a father before he'd been Castiel's vessel. "Castiel brought me up here after the second time he was exploded and put back together, but between then and the first time, we talked a lot. The culpability or lack thereof in the Apocalypse kicking off was one of those things we talked about. Not only were you not to blame, but you were pretty much the only one who didn't give up on trying to stop it, and you  _ won _ . Cut yourself some slack!" A spark of mischief lit in those blue eyes as he added, giving Sam an obvious once-over, "You're way too tall to be selling yourself that short!"

A sudden bang of a door flying open towards the back of the bar made most of the people gathered jump and reach for weapons as they turned towards the source of the commotion. Sam, too, turned to look, only to freeze again as he caught sight of a blonde-haired woman he could only remember seeing a scant handful of times, but immediately recognized. "Am I late?" Mary Winchester gasped, straightening up and shoving flyaway curls out of her face. "Is my son still here?"

" _ Mom _ ?" Sam choked out, eyes burning with the effort to neither blink nor cry. Green eyes just a hair bluer than Dean's zeroed in on him and Mary's face broke out in a wide smile.

"Sam!"

It was like seeing Adam all over again. Sam couldn't have said how it happened, whether she ran or even flew, but between one breath and the next Mary was across the room and throwing her arms around him. The force of their collision knocked the breath out of him in a strangled sob. His arms came up around her, shaking and uncertain, and she just held him tighter. There was no scent of cookies, but the warmth was the same, and the burning in Sam's eyes spilled over down his cheeks. "Mom...."

"Oh, Sammy," Mary's voice was breathless and thick with emotion. "Look at you, you've gotten so big...! I wasn't sure if I remembered right, it was so long ago I saw you like this...!"

"Mom," Sam gasped, burying his face in her shoulder as he clung to her nearly as tightly as she was clinging to him. "Mom, I'm sorry... I'm so sorry...."

"Shh, baby, no...  _ I'm _ sorry, Sammy," Mary shook her head against his chest. "I'm sorry I buried my head in the sand about that damned demon and didn't find a way to kill it when it came for you that night."

"You shouldn't have had to," Sam protested, the words hitched hard in his chest. "If Michael hadn't erased your memories--"

"Shush. I still would have had you, Sam," Mary told him as she drew back enough to look up into his face. The shade was different, but that was definitely the same stern "I know what I'm saying" look Sam had grown up seeing from Dean for nineteen years. "Listen to me, son, and listen good:  _ you deserve to exist. _ " She tossed her head, a little jerk of motion to indicate the rest of the bar and all the people gathered. "You're a blessing to so many people, Sammy, so many lives that would have ended so much sooner if you hadn't been there to save them--"

"So many lives made better from having known you, been touched by you,  _ loved _ by you," Jess broke in from near his right side.

"Even your mistakes have been blessings, because you learn from them and teach others what you learned," Jo piped up from where she stood with Adam.

"And not just humans," Jimmy added from somewhere to Sam's left. "I mean, seriously, Sam... your faith outlasted the faith of an angel! That's pretty damn inspiring!"

There was a murmur of agreement from around the bar, including a "hear, hear!" from someone that sounded a little like Victor Hendrickson of all people. Mary taking a firm grip on his shoulders distracted him from trying to look around while hiding under his hair, and he felt his flush deepen at the love and admiration in his mother's face being directed at him for the first time ever.

"Hey, guys," Ash called over from where he sat at his computer. The machine seemed to have grown a lot since the last time Sam had seen it, sprouting two extra monitors on either side of the main screen and at least three more towers. It looked more like the navigation console of a space ship than a computer, and Sam wouldn't discount that being intentional. "I hate to break up the reunion, like,  _ really _ hate to, but you kinda implied there's a bit of a time crunch on this mission, Sam, and I wanna get you into the Garden before Laughing McDickface notices my hack."

"You heard the boy," Mary sighed. She reached up and cupped Sam's face, looking up into his eyes as her own became suspiciously brighter. "Sam... I may not have wanted my boys to grow up as hunters, but I am so very proud of you."

"Thanks, Mom," Sam rasped, swallowing. "I love you."

"I love you, too, baby," Mary smiled up at him softly, then lowered her hands and stepped back, allowing Jess to step up in her place.

"Time to save the world again, huh?" Jess shook her head in bemusement and hugged him again. "Jo's right, this is becoming a habit. Don't die again any time soon, okay?"

"What would I do without you?" Sam joked, the familiar words tripping off his tongue almost without his leave. Jess tsked softly and pulled back, tapping him on the tip of his nose.

"Now?" she said, eyebrows arched as she, too, stepped back. "Go get your angel co-pilot on board to help keep you flying!"

"And speaking of Castiel, since I know he won't do it unless you do it first..." Sam turned just as Jimmy reached up and took hold of Sam's shirt front and, before Sam could quite register what he was planning, pulled him down into an open-mouthed kiss. Sam's awareness narrowed to heat, the friction of chapped lips, and the slick dart of a wet tongue against his own before Jimmy pulled back again amid the cat-calls from the rest of the bar and smirked. "Good luck, Sam. And when you see Castiel, remind him that he promised to look after my family, huh? After being busy with a war and then amnesiac and then crazy and then back in brainwashing, I wouldn't be surprised if he forgot."

Right.

"Through the door?" he asked Ash, just to be sure.

"Whenever you're ready, man," the hacker nodded.

"Kick Megatron's feathered ass!" someone shouted, prompting a wave of snickers. Sam took a breath to correct the speaker, much the way he would if it was Dean, but just let it out as the lead for his own chuckle. The glass on the Roadhouse's front door was still dark, but Sam knew that didn't matter. He reached out a hand to the latch, then hesitated.

"Don't look back, boy," Bobby said from much closer behind him than he had been. "You know better than that."

"Once more unto the breach?" Sam muttered back, wistful. For a fleeting moment, he wished Dean was here. And then he pressed the latch down and pulled open the door.


	5. Chapter 5

**N** O DEMON SURVIVED becoming a Knight of Hell by being stupid. It didn't matter if the Knight was once human or angel, the idiots did not survive. Most of the angels who had followed Lucifer in rebellion and been reduced to demons when he was cast into the Cage had not been up to the challenge, greater in power than the average newly created demon but handicapped by their own subservience when pitted against the creativity and initiative of the former humans, and so only the Princes retained the rank afforded them by their corrupted power without challenge, while the Knights fought their way up, earning their rank in the blood and shredded filaments of their kindred, where only those with their wits about them came out on top.

Abaddon was not a stupid demon, nor had she been a stupid angel. Far from looking down on humanity as mere overgrown monkeys playing in the mud as some of her erstwhile brethren had, she had looked upon humanity and seen them for the threat they were and made her plans accordingly. She had not even tried to challenge Cain, the First among the Knights, made immortal even against an angel's blade by the Mark of Lucifer, the secrets of which had been guarded closely by the Archangels, even after Lucifer had begun to become volatile under its influence. In fact, aside from defending her own rank against her fellows, she avoided confrontations with the Knights entirely and focused her attention instead on tracking the humans and their oh so clever attempts to unlock the secrets of the universe.

She had been the one to notice the so-called "Men of Letters" and slip inside their organization, tracking them as they spread from Europe to the Americas, watching as the Americans embraced the less rigid structure of a group cut loose from its overbearing parent organization and began making greater and greater strides of innovation. When the Seal of Solomon fell into their hands and they actually managed to open a rift, she new it was time to eradicate them before they could truly harness the power of the artifact they had so carelessly played with. She had found Josie, a studious little thing with no head for combat whose thirst for knowledge led her to be less cautious than she should, and had brokered a deal with her: knowledge for unlimited use of her body. Josie, who had never before encountered a demon, nor given any credence to the lore of Fallen angels, accepted without hesitation.

And so it was that Abaddon, not Josie, was escorted into the midst of the Men of Letters alongside her fellow Initiate, Henry Winchester. And so it was that Abaddon slaughtered these dangerous humans like the animals they were, gleeful to carry out Lucifer's will in preventing them from aspiring to challenge the might of Hell or Heaven. When Henry, clever little worm that he was, attempted a transport spell to take him to his son, Abaddon followed, foresight and knowledge of Azazel's plans to harness the power of the Archangels' Vessel bloodlines allowing her the means to alter the spell to carry them into the future far enough that whatever plans Azazel had would not be endangered by the accidental slaughter of Henry's son. She had no care for the child, only the threat posed by the father and the Men of Letters.

She was not counting on Henry's son having begat _two_ sons of his own with the daughter of the Campbell line, nor had she bargained on them having managed to buck destiny so far as to not only avert the Apocalypse after it had already begun, but to trap Lucifer _and_ Michael in the Cage. Clearly, being raised as Hunters had not dulled these boys' intelligence nearly enough, as they even managed to get the better of her and trap her inside Josie's mangled body before burying her. Furious and fuming, Abaddon settled in to wait, stewing in her ire and planning her extensive eradication of all things Winchester when she finally get free.

Her freedom came sooner than expected, and at the hands of the same boys who had trapped her. And of all the reasons to dig her up! Curing a demon? Closing the Gates of Hell? Impossible! Her escape was almost laughably easy, but she didn't stick around to gloat. She had _plans_ , after all, and these plans did not involve sticking around to give them a chance to recapture her before she was ready to eviscerate them.

And then, impossible as it had seemed, the Gates of Hell slammed shut, cutting Abaddon and her miniscule forces off from most of their power and resources. The minions fell into a panic while Abaddon sat silent, livid with shock as she tried to process how this could have happened.

_That's two impossible things at once,_ Josie whispered from where she sat chained to Abaddon's will. _Four more to go before breakfast!_

Abaddon neither knew nor cared what the insipid human was nattering on about, but the mockery implied rankled to the point that she nearly exploded the demon who came running in screaming about angels falling.

"Stop," she commanded, holding up one hand. When the demon fell gratifyingly silent, she said. "Now, let's try that again with some intelligence behind it. Slowly."

"My Lord Abaddon," the demon began, his meatsuit pale and sweating in a way no self-respecting demon should allow themselves to appear. "The angels are falling! In the sky! They're just... falling right out of Heaven!"

Abaddon drew herself up and stepped down from the raised dais on which she had been seated, approaching the demon that cowered before her. "Show me."

And so he did, leading the way out of the warehouse and pointing up at the sky that, to a human's eye, would appear to be filled with falling stars, thousands of them. _So few_ , she thought to herself with a pang that was hastily dismissed. She had no care for the lives of angels save that fewer angels meant a better chance of survival against them. Josie scoffed at her, but Abaddon was well practiced in ignoring her, instead turning her thoughts towards the implications of this.

_Raphael dead,_ she mused. _Gabriel in the wind since before the Great Fall, and Michael and Lucifer trapped in the Cage and useless. Those prim and proper pinion-heads need leadership and structure or they fall to pieces worse than humans..._

"Gather my generals," she instructed, blood red lips curving into a small, delighted smile. "We have much planning to do if we are to take advantage of the coming storm."

"Yes, my Lord Abaddon," the demon bowed and scurried away.

Watching the "stars" continue to fall to Earth, Abaddon permitted herself a small laugh, low and sinister. A bunch of angels scattered leaderless across the Earth? Such chaos they would sow among the humans and each other, leaving so many potential openings for Abaddon's forces to exploit and step up the collection of souls, perhaps even collecting a few angels in the process! Meanwhile, the Winchesters would be far too busy with the angels to pay her any mind at all. When the time inevitably came to take her revenge, there would be no warning.

 

**T** HERE WAS NO warning. One moment, the eyes of Heaven were on Sam Winchester once again defying expectations and completing the Trials and sealing shut the cracks and fissures around the Gates of Hell which all swung closed and locked from the outside... and then every angel in Heaven was gripped tight by the magic of Metatron's spell, powered by Castiel's Grace, and ripped from where they stood and tossed through Heaven's Gates down to the Earth below. No warning... save for one.

No other angel could have received any warning, but Joshua was unique among the angels. He was now the only one who still received any messages from their Father, even as bleak or unwelcome as some of those messages could be, and he took his role as the receiver of His Word in Gabriel's stead as seriously as he took his duty of tending to the Garden. Preparing as he was for the arrival of a very special soul, it was only a matter of moments to alter those preparations to allow for the lack of welcome that soul would receive.

And not a moment too soon.

His wings were shredding from the force of his ejection, the Garden trying to cling to him even as the spell forced him out. Joshua folded his wings tight against his back and spread his vessel's arms and legs wide, using the frail dimensions of his human form to try and slow his descent.

_Into thy hands, Father--_

Strong arms caught him around the middle as huge wings, greater than any cherub or seraph could boast, beat against the pull of the spell and broke him free. The force of being caught, of changing direction from falling to racing so quickly, drove the air from Joshua's lungs to emerge as a breathless burst of laughter. From nearby, other voices echoed his laugh, others cried out in thanks to their Father, and still others only cried, too overwhelmed by the rapid succession of change occurring.

**_"It's alright now,"_ ** an unfamiliar Voice echoed to them, resonating with the power of an Archangel, yet gentle and soothing in a way none of the Archangels had been in a very long time. **_"Let's get you all somewhere safe to rest while I fix Metatron's mess, okay?"_ **

"Thank you," Joshua breathed, stretching the bounds of his vessel's face to smile. He opened his awareness and Looked up at the Archangel who carried him and so many others of their brothers and sisters, unsurprised to see the echoes of a familiar soul amid the radiant green and golden Grace that peeked out from behind the bright blue eyes of a much more familiar vessel. "Thank you, Samuel. Our Father chose well in you."

**_"I'll take your word for it, Joshua,"_ ** the new Archangel said with the rumbling echoes of amusement. **_"And thanks for the instruction manual."_ **

 

**S** AM REMEMBERED SEEING the Garden as the Cleveland Botanical Gardens the first time he had been here. Part of him expected to see the same familiar plants and paved paths when he stepped through the doorway, but it seemed like the Garden had very different ideas. Oh, there was still a path, but unlike the concrete trails that led the way through regulated flower beds in Cleveland, this path was a mosaic of brown and grey stones forming gradient chevrons that pointed the way deeper into the untamed tangle of trees and vines and flowering bushes that encircled the stone archway Ash's door had opened from. Behind him, the door swung shut again and, when he looked over his shoulder, the archway was empty and the path overgrown with brush.

"Okay, go this way, I get it," Sam muttered as he turned around and began following the winding path deeper into the greenery. After what felt like a few hundred feet or so, he glanced behind him again to see that the path was disappearing behind him the further he walked along it. He hoped that was just the Garden's way of telling him he was going the right way and not some kind of Heavenly booby trap lying in wait for him now that the angels were gone.

That thought gave him pause. Joshua had been the one to bring him and Dean to the Garden the first time, but Joshua was an angel. He would have been ejected with the rest of them when Metatron completed the spell, meaning there was no one else up here besides Sam and Metatron, wherever that douche was.

_Let's hope I don't run into him any time soon,_ Sam thought to himself and continued walking, albeit more cautiously than before, taking care to tread lightly along the stones with his boots to avoid making any noise he didn't have to. He didn't know if that would help him evade detection from the power-crazy Scribe of God, but in the absence of any real plans or information, it was worth a shot.

The Garden was beautiful like this, he had to admit. Without the concrete and regulation imposed upon it by humans, the vegetation flourished in a riot of different colors and plant species, many of which Sam didn't even recognize. There was a faint rustling of leaves, and the odd buzz or two, but he couldn't be entirely sure that there were actually insects and animals among the trees and that he wasn't just hearing the sounds of them because part of him expected to hear them. After all, why would trees in Heaven need seed-distributors and pollinators?

_Maybe bees and squirrels can go to Heaven, too,_ Sam thought to himself, and then had to smile as he remembered Castiel's fascination with bees. Dean might have been weirded out by it, but Sam had always thought it made perfect sense given Castiel's attention to detail and structure.

The foliage thinned ahead of him and Sam became aware of a sound like muted thunder that went on and on without pause. Then he rounded the trunk of a huge oak and saw the clearing, and the small lake, and the waterfall at the far end. A single tree stood near the edge of the lake, its twisting trunk and curving branches stretching out to cast a cool and inviting shadow over the bank and the water, and the rough stone bench beneath it.

Wondering if it was the doing of the Garden or the angel who tended it that the bench sat beneath a Joshua tree, Sam left the shelter of the path and crossed to the tree. To his surprise and relief, there was a roll of something that looked like parchment sitting on the seat of the bench and mentally thanked the angel for his foresight. It felt like parchment when he picked up the coiled material, but it unrolled more smoothly than any parchment Sam had ever handled before, and the ink that painted the page in spidery calligraphy shimmered with many different colors.

_My dear Samuel_ , the note read. _Congratulations on your completion of the Trials and closing the Gates of Hell. I know that you will have faced many challenges, some of them unexpected, and your perseverance has done you much credit._

_Under better circumstances, you would have been brought directly here by your Reaper, where I would have been waiting for you to offer you a choice. That choice is still yours to make, and only you can make it, but I cannot be here to offer you the explanations you no doubt seek and of which you are more than deserving._

_To put it bluntly, Heaven is in desperate need of true leadership. Such is the role the Archangels were meant to fill, a role that has been filled imperfectly by the higher ranking seraphs who have stepped forward in the wake of Raphael's death, Michael and Lucifer's imprisonment, and Gabriel's desertion._

Sam paused over the wording there, frowning. He knew from Lucifer's oversharing, both after Sam had said Yes and in the Cage, that Lucifer had killed Gabriel, stabbed him with his own blade... or had he? Yes, Lucifer may have stabbed Gabriel, and it might even have looked like his blade, might even have been a regular angel blade with an illusion to make it look like an Archangel blade, but hadn't Gabriel pulled that exact same switch only moments before with Kali and the other pagan gods? It was something to puzzle over later, Sam decided with a huff, and continued reading.

_Samuel, our Father is not in the habit of changing many humans into angels, nor has He elevated a cherub or seraph to the rank and power of Archangel. This is exactly what is being offered to you now. Should you choose to refuse, you can follow the stone path around the lake and behind the waterfall, which will bring you to a doorway back into the human sections of Heaven. After everything you have already done in the service of our Father and humanity, no one would fault you for deciding to take that path._

_If, however, you choose to accept our Father's offer, know that every angel in or out of Heaven will be deeply in your debt in ways we cannot truly repay. Our very survival as a species hangs in the balance, and without a single leader to unite us, I fear we shall quickly become scattered and without recourse to rebuild._

"Laying it on a little thick, aren't you?" Sam mumbled. He flinched in guilt the next moment, a twisting sensation low in his gut whispering to him that if anything Joshua's letter was understating the potential chaos that would be caused by the angels left leaderless and stranded on Earth as they were likely to be if Metatron's spell had closed the Gates after the ejected angels the way Ella had said was happening.

He hoped Ella was okay. As many angels as had been falling, it was entirely possible, even likely, that Reapers on assignment had gotten caught up in the whole mess. He might not like the idea of not being able to save everybody, but he did understand that they had a job to do and that death was a natural part of existence.

_I'm probably ahead of the curve, there,_ he thought ruefully, glancing around the lake that stood in the Garden in Heaven. It wasn't like he had the same sort of uncertainty about death and what came after that most humans had, after all. He had _seen_ the way Heaven was set up, had seen Ash bypassing that set-up to create a real community among the deceased hunters and supernaturally affiliated souls, and it wouldn't surprise him in the slightest if that was just barely scratching the surface.

_And really, dicks or not, the angels don't deserve to be kicked out of their home by one runaway on a power trip,_ he admitted to himself. Newly resolved, he turned his attention back to the scroll.

_Should you choose not to accept, I ask that you carry this note back to your Heaven with you and destroy it so that Metatron does not come into possession of it._

Sam raised both eyebrows. Okay, definitely important and secret if Joshua was so concerned about keeping Metatron from finding it.

_Should you choose to accept, please follow these directions carefully._

  * _Remove whatever clothing and accessories you are visualizing yourself wearing. As you do, release your doubts and fears, acknowledging them and then setting them aside._


  * _When you are completely unclothed and unencumbered, dive into the lake. The water is very deep beneath the tree, and at the bottom are three stones. While you are underwater, place each stone in turn in your mouth and swallow it. Begin with the Hematite, then the Ruby, and then the Amethyst._


  * _Once you have swallowed the stones, exhale as deeply as you can and then inhale the water._



_I know this may seem to be a lot to ask of you, especially after so much has been asked already. If you cannot bring yourself to trust me, then at least trust in our Father one more time._

_In Faith,_ _  
_ _Joshua_

Well. Joshua was right to think that it would be asking a lot of a human to willingly drown themselves. Sam, on the other hand, was technically already dead, so breathing in water shouldn't actually kill him in a literal sense. Hopefully, he could override that little voice in his head that would try to argue the point when the time came. Who knew how deeply ingrained human instincts and learned behaviors got imprinted on a person's soul? He'd tried to reach for a weapon he wasn't carrying at least twice up here already.

Going back over the instructions didn't change the words at all, but they did begin to make more sense. Sam's familiarity with meditation practices was greater than Dean's ever had been, but it was still patchwork and incomplete. Letting go of thoughts was familiar, at least. Letting go of doubts and fears would be trickier, but not impossible. Getting naked while doing it almost gave him pause, but, well, this _was_ the Garden. _Stand naked before the sight of God and be ye without shame or doubt,_ Sam thought with a soft snort. He couldn't remember where he'd heard that, or why it had stuck with him in the back of his mind long enough to surface now, but it fit too well to be an accident. What was that thing Dean had said once? _"Accidents don't happen accidentally!"_

Sam read the instructions through twice more, committing them to memory, and then rolled the parchment up again. Setting the scroll on the seat of the bench where he had found it, he took a deep breath and slowly let it out, staring straight ahead of him at the surface of the lake and willing his mind to empty itself of any random thoughts-- especially that irritating little voice whispering about swallowing a ruby, and he was just never going to give any details of this whole thing to Dean, ever, because he would never live it down.

He took his boots off first, setting them aside and stuffing his socks into their depths, and then stood for a moment just feeling the grass beneath his bare feet. Unlike grass on Earth, which was usually cool and prickly against his skin, the grass here was warm and tickled into the soles of his feet like feather filaments. He removed his flannel shirt, followed by his t-shirt, and he folded both carefully before he set them aside. There was no sun here, but the Light that emanated from all around him was just as bright and carried some of the same warmth that was more than just physical. Next was the belt, sliding through the belt loops of his jeans with a soft hiss of leather on denim. He coiled it up and stuck it in one of his boots before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

_No doubts... no fears...._

He unfastened his jeans and let them drop, stepping out of them and nearly bending to pick them up off the ground before he thought better of it. He was supposed to be letting go, and the habits of a lifetime of needing to be ready to pick up and get ready were not needed here. His clothes had suffered worse than a few grass stains even on Earth.

_His clothes up here weren't really real._

The last article of clothing disappeared from his skin without his conscious movement of hand or cloth, and he stood before the lake completely uncovered, face turned up to the Light that shone upon him. He felt light, lighter than he could consciously remember ever being in his life, open and spread wide and still somehow more present here and within himself than before. The two steps he took forwards were too short to be a run, but it was enough to let him pick up speed to jump, clearing the bank and tucking himself into a ball as he drew in one last breath before he hit the water.

He had thought he'd known what to expect. He hadn't, not even a little. The water swept over him and pulled him down, warmer than any natural body of water Sam had ever encountered, as if the lake itself had known that being submerged in cold would do nothing good for him and his state of calm and had made itself warmer to welcome him in. He opened his eyes, and the world was clear around him, dimmer than the surface and tinged with blue and green, but still as clear and untroubled as the open air. He wanted to marvel at the sight, but something glittering below him caught at his attention and he tilted his body down, arms and legs propelling him deeper into the water to the bottom of the lake.

There was no sand below, no silt or mud or even algae coating the smooth dark rock, nothing to hide or conceal the three shimmering pebbles set in a row, one silvery black, one deep red, and one glowing purple, each no bigger than a marble. Sam pushed his way further down to the smooth rock bed of the lake and reached out, picking up the silvery black hematite first. Quickly, before he could think about what he was doing and risk letting in doubts, Sam pushed the hematite marble between his lips and swallowed it.

Heat exploded through him, a flash of fire along every nerve in his body that pooled down in his gut from groin to navel. Sam grit his teeth - the note hadn't said anything about this! - and willed himself to let the sensations pass through him, just as he had with the fire of power that lit his blood during the Trials. Two more stones to go. He picked up the ruby, ruthlessly throttling that little voice in his head that sounded like Dean snickering at him, and shoved it past his lips. It caught on his teeth for a moment before he pressed his lips tightly together and opened his jaw enough to let it past, his tongue guiding the smooth stone to the back of his mouth where he forced himself to swallow it down.

The fire was stronger this time, burning in his veins even as the majority of it collected in his chest, stretching down to his diaphragm and up practically in his throat. Sam fought the urge to curl himself into a ball around his core, fought the urge to kick his way to the surface and try to heave the two gems up back out of him. _No fear,_ he snarled at himself. _No doubt. Come on, Sam, you've made it this far... just one more to go!_

The amethyst felt blessedly cool against his fingers as he picked it up, easing the burn in a way no physical sensation could. _Just one more...._ The stone felt cool against his lips, a chill made so much more noticeable by the warmth of the water and the fire that pervaded his body. Clenching his eyes shut, Sam pushed the stone through the seal of his lips and swallowed it.

Ice filled his head, flowing down past his throat and punching the remaining air out of his lungs as the fire surged up to meet it, twining and twisting through what felt like every bone and muscle and sinew and cell. It burned, burned Sam from the inside out in a way that was all too painfully familiar, that he'd hoped never to have to feel again... _Please...!_

He gasped deep and the water rushed in, consuming him and filling him completely as the world around him was lit up in gold.

He opened his eyes--

He turned his head and opened his eyes--

He flexed his arms, arms, legs, arms, wings, wings, wings--

He opened his eyes wide--

He burst from the water, rising up and diving down, spreading out and folding in, eyes and mouths wide as he cried out in ringing tones that tolled likes the bells of Jim Murphy's old church and growled like the Impala's engine.

**_Enoa'en!!_ **

  
**A** ND THE FIRMAMENT of Heaven sang with him and rejoiced.


	6. Chapter 6

**I** N A MASSIVE room at the Heart of Heaven, there sat a dais which held four crystal orbs.

The first orb once might have been a ruby of startling clarity had it not been dulled by the striations of mossy green spotted with black, glowing muted and muddy red and scorching its cradle with inborn heat.

The second orb was cloudy white and threaded through with pink. Many cracks of black ran through its matrix, breaking up the once smooth swirls of plush colors, its glow dimmed and darkened and cold.

The third orb, cobalt blue and pyrite gold, was broken into shards that rested haphazardly in the indent meant to carry a whole orb.

The fourth orb was slightly smaller than the others, but it glowed all the more brightly for its lack of size, throwing off sparks and flashes of blue and teal and pale green as if trying to attract attention after being ignored for too long.

The dais itself was a humble thing, just a rough-hewn plank of olive wood with four depressions carved into the topmost side. It had stood there since the formation of Heaven, since God the Creator had first structured Heaven to be a home to His Archangels and the seraphim and cherubim who followed. It was a beacon and a monument, uniting those four orbs and the Archangels to which they were connected, even when those Archangels were scattered, imprisoned... dead. Only four.

Until there were five.

There was no fanfare, no flash of light or grand display of power as the wood warped and changed. What once held only four orbs simply and suddenly held five, the original four arranged thus two and two on either side of the fifth. This orb was dark where the others were light, black and glossy and swirling with a kaleidoscope of colors across the surface, minute cracks and fissures in the crystal matrix filled with pure veins of gold.

In a little cubby office just off to the side of the main room, slightly off-center of the Heart of Heaven, Metatron worked industriously on the script for the grand story he planned to have the rest of the angels play out for him. Busy as he was at the old-fashioned typewriter in which he had hidden the stolen Angel Tablet, the erstwhile Scribe of God took no notice of the changes in the Throne Room of Heaven. He didn't even notice the door to the office opening until he was grabbed from behind and hauled away from the desk. Twisting and flailing in a grip stronger and more unyielding than steel, he caught only a glimpse of great wings and an Archangel's form and halo in gold and bronze and green before he was flung into a tiny cell and locked inside.

 

**T** HE BUNKER FELT like a tomb to Dean as he and Crowley carried Sam's unconscious body through the halls to Sam's room. Without the chains to hinder him, Crowley was sure-footed and steady, easily holding up Sam's feet while Dean supported his brother's head and shoulders. The long and lanky form sagged between them, but it wasn't hard to tell how much lighter Sam was than he should be, brutal testament to the ravages of illness the Trials had visited upon Sam and that Sam had stubbornly hidden until he physically could not hide them any longer.

The former King of Hell remained silent, perhaps sensing the way Dean's composure was so precariously balanced. Dean tried not to feel grateful for that, not wanting to feel any sort of gratitude towards the monster that had put them, put  _ Sam _ , through so much shit on top of everything else. He wasn't even sure why he hadn't already killed him beyond the fact that Crowley was human now and if anyone deserved to kill the bastard after everything it was Kevin... although Dean wasn't feeling too pleased with Kevin, either, despite Sam's admonishment not to be a dick to the teenaged Prophet.

"Dean?"

_ Speak of the Devil, _ the hunter thought crossly, then tried not to wince too obviously as Sam's voice echoed back his earlier admonishment from inside his head. It came through so clearly that Dean had to surreptitiously check to make sure Sam was still out cold. He was, so Dean turned his attention back to side-stepping around in the tiny cell of a room towards the bed. "Hey, Kevin."

"What's going on?" the Prophet asked from where he hovered in the open doorway, wary eyes going from Dean to Crowley and back. "Why is  _ he _ here?"

"Crowley's human," Dean said shortly. He caught the former demon's eye and jerked his head at the bed, receiving a nod. Together, they hefted Sam up and onto the bed close to the middle of the mattress, Dean taking an extra moment to make sure Sam's head landed on the pillow as he continued, "The cure worked, but now Sam's in really bad shape."

There was a moment of silence before Kevin asked, his voice odd in a way Dean wasn't sure he could parse. "Sam?"

"He's alive, but we need to get a hold of Cas if we're gonna keep him that way." Dean looked up then, turning to give Kevin a list of things he was going to need to patch up the cut on Sam's hand properly, but stopped as he got a look at the incredulous look on the teenager's face.

"You stopped him?!" Kevin demanded, his hands clenching and flexing like he wasn't sure whether to hit Dean or strangle him. It was so uncharacteristic of the Prophet, even at his surliest, that it took Dean a moment to comprehend what Kevin was accusing him of having done.

"What? No!" Dean straightened up and pointed at Sam, glaring at Kevin. "Believe me, I fucking tried to stop him, but he refused! He wouldn't stop, and he fucking completed those Trials!"

"If Sam had completed the Trials, he would already be dead!" Kevin exploded, anger and agony twisting his features. "If he's still alive, then you've condemned him to a slow and painful death for  _ nothing! _ He failed!"

"He didn't fail!" Dean roared back.

A gasp from the bed drew their attention. All three of them, Dean, Kevin, and Crowley, turned to look at Sam. The hunter's eyes were open, but rolled completely back so that only the whites could be seen, his back bowed off the bed.

" **_Enoa'en!!_ ** " he screamed, his voice echoing off the concrete walls, magnified beyond what should have been possible for a human. Golden light flashed across his body in a single, blinding pulse that forced the three humans to turn their eyes away as the very air in the room hummed with compressed power.

And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. The light disappeared. The power humming in the air dissipated. Sam's body collapsed back down to the bed, as limp and unresponsive as he had been when Dean and Crowley had laid him there only minutes earlier. Silence descended on the room as the three of them each tried to process just what had occurred.

Dean was the first to speak. "What the fuck was that?!"

"' _ Enoa'en _ '," Kevin breathed, wide eyes fixed on Sam's now slack face with wonder. "It's Enochian. 'Thus I am become.' He... he really did it!"

"Did what?!" Dean demanded, ruthlessly shoving down the hard flare of alarm in favor of getting answers of which he could make some kind of sense. "What the hell did my little brother do now?!"

"Ascended."

It was Crowley who answered, the first word he'd spoken since he and Dean had left the church. He was staring at Sam's face with a very similar look of awe to the one Kevin was sporting. Dean wasn't sure how he felt about Kevin looking at Sam that way, but he definitely knew he didn't like Crowley looking at him that way at all. It reminded him entirely too much of the looks some of the more fanatical demons had given Sam over that "boy king" bullshit back before they found out the Apocalypse was the literal endgame.

"Someone wanna explain what the hell that means?" he gritted out, glaring from Prophet to former demon. "'Cause Sammy didn't just turn himself into a giant glowing space-squid, here. I'd a noticed that!"

"Coming back to your having watched  _ Stargate SG-1 _ later," Kevin began with an innocent look that Dean wouldn't buy for a second with a fraudulent credit card, "Ascension is what happens when a human soul is so pure and imbued with so much holy power that they essentially become new angels."

"It's not exactly common, certainly not since angels stopped walking around down here all regular-like," Crowley put in with a what-can-you-do sort of shrug under Dean's glower. "Used to happen often enough there was talk down below, old legends about the angels filling out their ranks with cannon fodder for the coming end of days. S'what got the whole Crossroads deals racket really taking off, trying to flush out the demons' numbers so we wouldn't get massacred out of hand."

"Anyway," Kevin broke in when Dean's already stormy expression turned downright thunderous, "There's not too many circumstances I saw listed on the Tablet that would result in Ascension, and it's not like that's what I was looking for, but... well, if anything was going to qualify Sam for it, completing the Trials would certainly be the most likely."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Dean held up a hand, silently pleading for them to stop and let him catch up, still hung up on something Kevin had yelled at him earlier. "You said if he completed the Trials then Sam would be dead, that he couldn't have completed the Trials if he was still alive, and now you're saying you were wrong?"

"No, that's still true," Kevin denied as he shook his head. "To complete the Trials, Sam had to give up his life. He did, Hell was sealed shut, his soul Ascended."

"No," Dean shook his head. He couldn't believe it. Everything was supposed to be okay now, big win for Team Free Will, not... "Sam... Sammy's alive, he's breathing, got a pulse, everything, you just  _ heard _ him fucking speak--!"

"Squirrel... Dean," Crowley took a step towards him, halting when Dean's hand went to his back where he kept his Colt. Calmly, too calmly for Dean's taste, the former demon continued talking. "Dean, think for a minute. You're a hunter, you've been around demons, angels, ghouls, all kinds of things that make a body walk around like anyone else. You should know by now that doesn't necessarily mean a person's alive or all there."

"What the hell are you saying?" Dean ground out, staring Crowley down.

"The lights may be on in that big moose body of his," Crowley said, staring right back, "but Sammy's not home."

 

**C** ASTIEL WAS STARING at him with an expression that, to Sam's almost incomprehensibly layered perceptions, seemed almost identical to the one he had turned on Sam years before in the wake of Alistair's death. Back then, running on demon blood and rage, he had interpreted the look on Castiel's borrowed human face as horrified. Now, with these new angelic perceptions allowing him to see the shifts and pulses of Castiel's soul - and it was definitely a soul, not just residual Grace - Sam thought the expression might be something a little closer to awe.

Which was kind of disturbing to think about too closely, so he set that aside and said instead,  **_I heard your call._ **

"I see," Castiel replied, his tone as blank as his expression. There was a pause, and then he added, "Did you find my voice grating?"

**_Should I?_ ** Sam asked, feeling his wings shift and flex with the uncertainty that curled through him. In actuality, Castiel's call had come through loud and clear, much clearer and ringing than any of the other voices crying out at the edges of his awareness.

"No," Castiel answered, dropping his eyes. His shoulders were tense, more so than Sam had ever seen them, and it made Sam want to pull him close and urge him to just relax. "I... Sam, why are you here?"

**_I heard your call,_ ** Sam repeated, trying to infuse his Voice with all the love and tenderness he felt for the angel... Former angel.  **_Where else would I be?_ **

"With Dean?" Castiel suggested. His voice was low and muffled, so Sam was unsure if he had meant to say it out loud. It was painfully telling, however, and Sam couldn't even deny that his supposition was unfounded. Sam and Dean both had shown a very unhealthy codependence in the past several years that Castiel had known them, a codependence that Sam was honestly still trying to turn into something less damaging to them both even before he took on the Trials. Even now, there was a tiny part of Sam yearning towards the Bunker where he hoped -  _ knew _ \- his brother had gone, maybe even with Sam's body if he was lucky. He certainly couldn't walk around in his new True Form all the time, not if he was going to be on Earth at all.

Deeply attached as he was to his brother, however, Sam knew that his current situation was not something that Dean could help him with. Gathering his thoughts, he said as much.

**_Cas, I've been an angel for all of thirty minutes at most, here,_ ** he told Castiel honestly.  **_I have no idea what I'm doing, and out of every angel out there I could ask for help, you're the one I trust most. So I'm asking you._ ** His wings arched forward, turning out until the inside curves of his wings were bared in supplication.  **_Please, Cas... help me save everyone from Metatron's trickery._ **

"Yes."

The word carried a weight that would have knocked the breath out of Sam if he'd had lungs. No hesitation, no lack of certainty, just calm and steady affirmation. It rocked Sam like a lightning bolt through his soul... Grace... his very essence of being. There was a moment of stillness. Everything seemed to pause and hold its collective breath, waiting. After the space of two heartbeats, Castiel opened his eyes again and looked up at Sam, frowning in puzzlement.

"Did you hear me, Sam?" he asked. "Yes. I agree to be your vessel."

**_Oh!_ ** Sam felt sure that if he had a physical form, he would have been blushing. He felt like an idiot, having felt the depth of that word and not having understood it even knowing the basics of angels and vessels as he'd learned during the Apocalypse.  **_Right, sorry... uh, how do I... er...?_ **

"Get inside me?" Castiel asked. Sam felt his embarrassment double, and even Castiel seemed to realize how that could be taken, because his cheeks gave a very human flush. What followed was a string of Enochian, accented for the lack of resonant Grace and passing through a human throat, that lay out the concepts of True Form compression and Vessel alignment as clearly and concisely as Sam could have wished. The simple directions tugged at the new wellspring of knowledge still trying to settle inside him, sparking more detailed and nuanced recollections from the hastily downloaded repository, until Sam was reasonably confident he could fit himself into Castiel's vessel -  _ body _ \- without exploding them both.

Still, he hesitated a moment longer.  **_Castiel... are you sure you want this?_ **

The question finally got Castiel to look at him directly again, the former angel drawing himself up to his vessel's full height.

"Sam Winchester," he pronounced firmly, eyes narrowed, "I can honestly think of no one else for whom I would ever say Yes."

**_Cas..._ ** Sam felt the abbreviated pronunciation of the angel's name resonate with the echoes of love and devotion he felt but had never until now heard put into words.

"Now get in here," Castiel continued, spreading his arms wide. "We've got work to do."

The clearing lit up more brightly than before as Sam obeyed, putting theory to practice and folding himself further down, flowing into the spaces inside Castiel's body that were already filled, and yet the soul that filled them opened to him, welcomed his presence, and made room for him. A thought, a brush of affection, and a flash of understanding and joy passed between the two of them as Sam settled into Castiel and they spread his wings, testing the reach that was greater than a seraph but younger and more new than even the youngest star. Time and space stretched out before their Awareness, showing the paths that they had already taken and still had yet to take, the order of events that matched no linear perceptions but their own.

Between one breath and the next, they were gone.

 

**D** EEP IN THE bowels of Hell, in the furthermost corners of the darkest pits, three beings Felt the sudden, resonant pulse of divine power echoing across a frequency only four beings had ever had access to.

**_You said I took the Name in vain..._ **

All three had Felt it when Raphael was destroyed, his Grace exploded by the power of millions of warped and tainted souls that screamed oh so briefly to them in the empty wake left by Raphael's destruction.

**_...I don't even know the Name..._ **

There had been nothing to resonate on that frequency since.

**_...But if I did, well really, what's it to you?_ **

There had been no reason, nothing that would set the thrum of power echoing along those channels strong enough to pierce even the depths of Hell and the Cage.

**_There's a burst of Light in ev'ry Word--_ **

The eldest of them recognized it first, the only one of them who had Felt the birth of each Archangel after him, who knew intimately the Feeling of his Father crafting and giving consciousness to his closest siblings, and he cried out for that undeniable proof that his Father still lived.

**_\--it doesn't matter which you've heard--_ **

The youngest recognized it next, finally placing that feeling of warmth and Light as something he had Felt with every new fledgeling angel to be created after him, and yet so much stronger, so much brighter, old and new entwined together the way they never had before, and he laughed, bitterness and joy too tangled up to matter which was greater.

**_\--the holy--_ **

The third was the one who recognized the newborn Archangel's identity, having once been deeply connected to the soul which his Father's power had now imbued with Grace, and though he wanted to scream at the injustice, this further proof that his Father's promises meant nothing when made to  _ him _ , he only sighed in disgust and grudging admiration at the audacity of his former True Vessel to surpass him so thoroughly.

**_\--or the broken--_ **

Any demons who tread near the edges of the borders circling the Cage which nothing infernal could cross, every demon who stood at hand in the cells sequestered far away from the main halls of Hell, all bore witness and yet failed to understand the Archangels simultaneous intonation resonating back to their new brother.

**_\--hallelujah!_ **

"Hallelujah," Gabriel whispered, even as the cursed needle plunged through his vessel's flesh to sew his lips shut.

"Hallelujah," Michael wept, curling his tattered wings around himself and shaking from the cold that filled the Cage in the wake of the slowly receding warmth.

Not far from him, though far enough not to accidentally touch, Lucifer tilted his faces up towards the thinnest part of the Cage where the echo of newborn Archangel Grace was slowly fading from awareness.

"Halle-fucking-lujah," he muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year, everyone!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, everyone, have a few concurrently occurring scenes, none of which are from Sam's POV, all of which vital to the overarching non-linear narrative!

**W** HAT DO YOU mean that's not Sammy?!"

"Your selective hearing is as good as ever," Crowley muttered with a roll of his eyes. A little against his will, Kevin snorted in amusement, but pretended he hadn't made a sound when the former demon glanced at him. Crowley looked away quickly and gave the irate hunter a flat stare. "It's still Sam's body. His soul is elsewhere again, but it's still him. No one infernal is in residence, not while that pretty little picture is still painted on him--" He jabbed a finger in the direction of Sam's left pectoral and the anti-possession symbol inked into the skin beneath the flannel shirt. "--so unless you get stupid and go calling down some strange angel who may or may not want to smite your perky Apocalypse-stopping arse, he'll be just fine until your crazy Kitten shows up."

"Crowley's right," Kevin spoke up as Dean's expression turned thunderous. "And believe me, I can hardly comprehend that I'm actually saying that. If his body wakes up again without him in it, we might have a problem, but from what I read of the last time this happened it wasn't that bad."

"He tried to kill Bobby!" Dean snapped.

"You were going to shove his flayed soul back inside him and potentially kill  _ him! _ " Kevin snapped back. Dean blinked at him, clearly shocked by the sudden and uncharacteristic outburst from the usually surly teenager, but Kevin ignored that in favor of continuing with, "Look, you've made it  _ abundantly _ clear that you hate those books about you and Sam, and I certainly don't blame you given how bad the writing was and how personal they get. So please understand how serious I am when I tell you that you need to sit down and fucking read those books, all of them, because  _ God literally knows _ how well you and Sam don't talk about shit that you really, really need to! For Sam's sake, if nothing else."

The fight that had been building up in Dean drained out of him at that, and he looked away. Kevin watched as the hunter's gaze fell on the unconscious body and his jaw clenched before, with a huffed "whatever", Dean turned and stormed out of the room. Kevin and Crowley exchanged an awkward look.

"Sorry for, y'know, kidnapping and torturing you, your mum, and your girlfriend," the former King of Hell muttered. Kevin felt his own jaw clench, but held back the curses he wanted to spew at this thing that was supposedly human now but still looked and even distantly felt like the monster that had held him prisoner.

"You're not forgiven," he said instead, voice tight with the effort to keep his temper in check. Maybe later they could have it out and Kevin could yell and scream at him, throw a few punches, but not now. Not here. "I appreciate the apology, though."

Crowley nodded, as if he'd expected that, and after another awkward moment the former demon excused himself and left, possibly intending to find Dean, or to find himself a room of his own while he had the chance. Kevin waited until both sets of footsteps had well and truly faded before he allowed himself to relax, slowly letting out the breath he had held tight in his chest in a long, low sigh.

"They're gone now," he said, his voice as low as his sigh had been, and with as little inflection.

"You could have gone with them," said a voice from the bed, measured and blank and with even less inflection than Kevin's words had held. It had the same pitch as Sam, the same accented cadence, but the words still rang hollow and without the gentleness and compassion that always seemed to hover just under everything Sam ever said to him.

"Could have," Kevin admitted, turning to look at the figure on the bed. His eyes were open and looking at Kevin, fine-boned features marking out the shape of an expression that passed for curiosity but lacked the thoughtful spark in those usually so dynamic eyes to truly count. "Didn't. Don't really want to deal with Dean right now, still hate Crowley, and figured you could use..." He paused, then shrugged. "Well, I dunno if I count as a  _ friendly _ face, but at least I'm not a hostile one."

"I appreciate that," Not-Sam said, and Kevin could believe that he probably did mean it on some level and wasn't just saying it because he thought he should. "I appreciate your earlier words, too. Defending me like that. You did not need to... so, thank you."

"You don't need to thank me for that," Kevin said, shaking his head. "Maybe it's my outsider perspective or whatever, but I can't really blame you for wanting to save your own life, even if it meant going through people your memories said were family but who were treating you like shit even before they found out about the lack of soul."

"You're taking my lack of soul better than anyone else ever has," Not-Sam pointed out. Kevin shrugged, glancing at the wall, then the rickety bookshelves, then back at Not-Sam.

"Soul or not, you were always the most dangerous person in the Bunker," he said, choosing his words carefully. "Dean might be quicker to anger and to lash out, but that's what it is. Sam -  _ you _ \- are a lot more controlled and calculating. I'm not saying I'm afraid of you, exactly, but... I guess I just have a healthy respect for your destructive capabilities. Soulless you has less morality-based impulse control, but more immediate calculation and logical process. Bottom line, you're not likely to try and kill me unless I become a direct threat to your survival."

"I would try not to kill you even then," Not-Sam said after a moment, in what was probably meant to be some kind of reassurance. It was a far cry from "I wouldn't try to kill you," but Kevin decided to take it for the awkwardly realistic and pragmatic reassurance it was.

"Never know when you might need a Prophet of the Lord?" he joked, and was surprised when Not-Sam frowned.

" _ He _ cares about what happens to you, Kevin, even if I can't," he said, making Kevin's breath catch a little at the very clear emphasis that he knew,  _ knew _ didn't have anything to do with Dean. "And  _ he _ is going to come back in eventually and take over again. The last time,  _ his _ efficiency was severely crippled by the feelings of sorrow and guilt that emerged learning of my actions without _ him _ in charge, as well as the wariness of Bobby and Dean."

"So... you're saying that it matters to you what happens to us," Kevin said slowly.

"I  _ need _ it to matter, because it matters to  _ him _ ," Not-Sam said. He turned his head to look at the door and, facing twisting into a grimace of distaste, added matter-of-factly, "Dean will most likely punch me the moment he sees me awake. Please don't try to stop him."

"Do you know why Dean is so angry about you?" Kevin asked. He thought he could guess, but he wanted to know Not-Sam's perspective.

"He thinks that he means nothing to me," Not-Sam said with calm certainty, a tiny frown forming between his brows. "He thinks that, because I'm still technically Sam with all of Sam's memories, that I can tell him all the things he doesn't want to hear, and he knows that I have no  _ emotionally _ driven reason not to."

"But you have other reasons not to," Kevin guessed. "Like your reasons for trying not to kill me even if something came up that made killing me a more viable option for optimum results."

"Exactly," Not-Sam agreed, though he didn't stop frowning. He frowned more deeply and coughed, then coughed harder, one hand reaching automatically for the tissue box that was just out of reach. Kevin moved forward and picked up the box, shoving it into the questing hand and yanking out a tissue to hold up to Not-Sam's mouth as the coughing turned to heaving. A moment later, Not-Sam spat out a mouthful of thick brown liquid that looked like watery tar and smelled faintly of copper. The two of them studied the mess in silence for a moment before Not-Sam set the tissue box between his knees and folded the soiled tissue up, tossing it in the waste basket beside the bed. "Good."

"That's good?" Kevin said, giving him a sidelong look, because unless he missed his guess that had been  _ blood _ Not-Sam was coughing up.

"It's old blood," Not-Sam explained. "Not fresh. Just whatever was still seeping into my lungs when I went into the church."

"You're right, that is good," Kevin agreed. Not-Sam gave him a startled glance, and Kevin shrugged again. "I might've known it was necessary, but I still didn't like the idea of you dying." Remembering the way Not-Sam had used his emphasis, he added, "I kind of like  _ him _ , and I don't mind you at all."

There was a moment of silence as Not-Sam processed what Kevin had said, and then his lips curved up in a fair approximation of Sam's rarely-seen shy smile. "I don't mind you, either, Kevin."

 

**T** HE ALLEY WAS dark and musty, damp with rain and reeking of rotting meat and vegetation from a nearby dumpster. The sharp copper tang of blood spilled over every other scent, mingling with the decay in a thick and cloying stench of impending death. The scent alone would have driven away most anyone who might have investigated, even without the dark shadows and foreboding atmosphere of that area of town. No one came this way unless they had to, and most people would find any excuse available not to have to.

He was going to die here.

The thought irritated him more than anything else. He wasn't so arrogant as to believe that he would never die, but he at least had hoped to last longer than only twenty-four years. Not even a quarter of a century of life before having it literally cut short on the knife blade of a strung out junkie looking for quick cash and getting angry at him when his wallet proved too empty to provide the demanded funds. Given the state of his clothes - threadbare jeans and flannel, ragged black and gray hoodie, and ripped sneakers - he couldn't even believe the guy had thought he'd actually have anything worth stealing in the first place.

It would be much less worth stealing now, soaked as he was becoming in his own blood. He couldn't even remember being stabbed. There had been the flash of the knife in the distant streetlamp, the burning ache in his gut, and the hot liquid pulsing over his hand where he clutched with futile desperation at the jagged hole that had been ripped into him. Part of him wondered it the hole was wide enough that he could reach inside and staple his guts back together, while the distant corner of his mind that wasn't giggling inappropriately coolly identified his state as shock.

His mother would have shaken her head at him and clicked her tongue, he thought. It was just as ridiculous a thought as the idea of stapling his guts together; his mother was dead, after all, and if she had been alive she probably would have been trying to flag down someone to  _ help him _ , not standing over him and staring in disapproval while her dying son made jokes in his own head about going into the light...

There was an awful lot of light in this alley.... Hadn't it been darker just a moment ago? He could have sworn it was, dark and dreary and way too far from any well-travelled path for him to be found in time for the doctors to  _ save him _ ...

**_Do you want to be saved?_ **

He blinked. What kind of question was that? Of course he wanted to be saved! Not that there was any point, he'd already lost so much blood that he couldn't drag his half-starved body towards the main drag, never mind trying to make it to a hospital.

**_I can try to save you... I am very weak, and it has been so long... but I will try, if you ask._ **

_ And what do you want in return? _ he thought before it occurred to him that mysterious voices from nowhere probably wouldn't appreciate his cynicism. Then again, mysterious voices from nowhere couldn't very well quibble about what life had taught him to be a perfectly sensible precaution in dealing with anyone offering to help a halfbreed refugee like him.

**_I would ask nothing you cannot give._ ** The voice sounded almost like it was trying to soothe him.  **_I only ask for you to give me leave to take you as a vessel for a time._ **

_ Vessel? _ That sounded kind of odd.  _ What's that mean? _

**_I would inhabit your body alongside your soul, occasionally acting through you. Your soul would lend me the strength I need to heal us both._ **

That didn't sound so bad. And hell, it definitely beat dying in an alley.

"Yeah... sure..." he breathed, slumping back against the wall and looking up at the light. He thought he caught a glimpse of wings spanning the whole alley, brittle and broken in places but still massive, before all he could perceive was light and everything but the light and the voice faded away.

**_What is your name?_ **

_ Seth, _ he started, habit bringing the name to mind, and then changed his mind and gave his true name.  _ Ujarak. I'm Ujarak. What's yours? And what are you, anyway? _

**_I am an angel,_ ** the voice said. He was distantly aware of his body moving without his conscious effort, and the impression of warmth became more prominent, as if he was somehow feeling a smile.  **_My name is Gadreel._ **

 

**C** LAIRE HADN'T BEEN home in a few days.

Amelia Chastaine Novak was painfully aware that she was not the most attentive of parents even on the best of days. If anyone had even asked her, she would have said that she didn't particularly even want to have kids. However, in a community as conservative and Catholic as where she had grown up, it was only the Right Thing (the  _ only _ thing) a woman could really expect to do: get married, have kids, keep the home in order while her husband worked, and never let on that she was anything but Perfectly Happy with "the hand God dealt her".

Social pressures had dealt her the hand to marry Jimmy when they had reached high school age and he was the only boy she could stand to be around for longer than ten minutes, while she was the only girl he ever seemed to talk to. Social pressures had been what prompted her to go off her birth control that had kept her cycles blessedly regular and pain free during her teenage years, and she had done as God and the church and everyone around her demanded and welcomed Claire into the world with an exhausted and only slightly forced smile.

Jimmy, bless his heart, had taken to fatherhood like he had never been meant for anything else. He got up in the middle of the night for her feedings, changed her dirty diapers with light-hearted teasing commentary, played with her on the floor of the living room after he came home from work while Amelia was getting dinner together in the kitchen.... He read her stories before bed, teaching her the letters and the words, and praising her when she repeated back the simpler ones in the right order, taught her to count while making a game of picking up her toys before bed, and tucked her in at night after she had her bath and her teeth were brushed with a goodnight kiss to her forehead. When he got the promotion that moved them from Normal, Illinois, all the way to Pontiac, he'd found a nice little house with enough of a backyard to put in a home-built swing set for "their" little girl who always seemed to be more his than Amelia's.

She felt entirely too conflicted about that as well, relieved that Claire had that kind of close and healthy and supportive parental bond, and yet inexplicably jealous that it wasn't with  _ her _ , despite not having the slightest idea how to try and build one. Watching Claire take to the dolls and the pink princess dresses and the shiny shoes in a way Amelia had never managed with any sort of ease felt like watching some more perfect and normal version of herself growing up too late to have been her, like Amelia was somehow defective for not wanting to choose what had been decided for her.

And then Jimmy had disappeared without a trace while taking the trash out one night and Amelia's dreary but safe little world had collapsed.

It wasn't hard to understand, intellectually, why Jimmy would have said yes to an Angel of the Lord that came looking for a vessel to help save the world. Understanding was a far cry from accepting, however, that the police had been little to no help in those early weeks after he disappeared and mostly just gave her pitying looks as if they had already made up their own minds about what "really" happened. All the understanding in the world didn't stop the gossip she overheard in the supermarket, the saccharine sympathy from the neighbors she had to beg to watch Claire after school while she was looking for somewhere, anywhere that would hire a woman with little more than a high school diploma because her husband disappeared and couldn't pull in a paycheck to keep a roof over the heads of his wife and daughter or put food in their bellies or buy Claire's new shoes when some bullies got ahold of her old ones and dangled them off the power lines outside the school.

Understanding didn't even factor in to when the demons came calling, and those two strange men showed up with Jimmy, and then the angel who'd taken Jimmy away from her had taken  _ Claire _ and Jimmy was clutching his gut and bleeding and screaming for "Castiel" to take him instead, to leave his daughter out of this--

Understanding that either your life was crazy or you were did not actually stop the crazy.

Knowing that it was your life that was crazy did not stop people from believing you were the crazy one when the truth was too crazy to believe. "My husband was possessed by an angel and my daughter and I were kidnapped by demons to lure the angel into a trap..." Yeah, she never would have believed it either. Claire's teachers certainly hadn't, which was the first time Amelia had been called into a conference with Claire, her teacher, and the school's guidance counselor. She had needed to send Claire out into the hallway while she lied through her teeth to the two women about Jimmy disappearing and the police being unable to find him, about how she and Claire had been briefly held hostage by criminals who had been killed in the ensuing confrontation, about how Claire was at a delicate age where it was easier for her to believe that her father was dead and in Heaven than that he might have gotten mixed up in something none of them had been prepared for....

Claire had been sullen and angry in the car on their way home as Amelia laid out the story she had fed the teacher and counsellor and informed Claire that, unless she wanted people to think she was crazy, she was going to have to stick to that story regardless of what actually happened. Because it didn't matter that Jimmy really had been possessed by an angel or that they had been kidnapped by demons. No one was going to believe them, and continuing to insist on it was going to get them both into trouble.

Amelia had hoped that would be the end of it, but it wasn't. Without Jimmy's body, and with random sightings still turning up here and there, she couldn't just have her husband legally declared dead without being accused of life insurance fraud. However, Jimmy's accounts could be frozen, which meant that Amelia no longer had access to their savings to try and keep ahead of the bills and the mortgage. Suddenly, the entry level cashier position she had been able to get at a nearby grocery store wasn't enough to make ends meet. She had resorted to scouring the house for knick knacks and heirlooms that could be auctioned off or sold online when a knock on the door had proven to be a policeman with a dirty and scowling Claire held by the arm. That was the first time that Claire had run away.

It wasn't the last. Amelia, stuck pulling double shifts at her job, simply could not be home often enough to keep track of her daughter when she wasn't in school if they wanted to be able to keep the house. She had looked into selling the property with an eye to moving into a smaller apartment, tiny and more appropriate for a woman living alone with her underage daughter, but after the housing crash hit shortly after they had bought the house, all the residence properties were reassessed and the value of their house had dropped. The difference between what they had agreed to pay for the house and what the house was now worth was so much that even if she managed to find a buyer at its new value she would still have to come up with twenty-two thousand dollars more to pay the rest of the mortgage off before she could wash her hands of it. Even at a monthly payment of three hundred and fifty dollars, it would still take her another five and a half years before selling the house would let her break even.

Court-ordered therapist bills for Claire after the fourth time she ran away did not help that. When questioned, all Claire would say on the subject had been, "I want my Daddy back!" As much as Amelia wanted to agree that getting Jimmy back would be the best for all of them, she wasn't sure that Jimmy could come back. That angel had been pretty clear that taking him as a vessel would mean Jimmy never returned home. She didn't have a clue how else to comfort her daughter - Jimmy's daughter - when all Claire wanted was Jimmy back and Jimmy was gone. Amelia wasn't good enough, and she knew it, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt, and there was no one to comfort  _ her _ . She was supposed to suck it up and stand on her own despite nothing in her life having prepared her to do any such thing.

There was someone knocking on the door. Amelia could feel the pounding of a fist against wood echoed in her skull. For a long moment, she gave serious consideration to just not answering, but no. She would not be allowed to escape that easily, and if it was another police officer come to hand over her newly-found runaway daughter yet again....

Heaving a sigh and casting a mostly sardonic prayer for patience up to whoever might be listening and inclined to take pity on her, Amelia levered herself out of the depression in the couch and shuffled towards the front door. The mirror beside the door showed a more drawn and haggard face than she was used to presenting, her make-up faded and her hair falling out of the severe bun she wore to work every day, but her clothes were reasonably clean and free of wrinkles. She glowered at her reflection, then at the bright white paint of the door, then reached for the lock and clicked it open before turning the knob. "Yes, what can I...?"

She stopped, the words drying up in her throat. She had been half-right in her assessment, because there was Claire, still in the clothes she'd been wearing four days ago and her hair obviously unwashed in about as long. She was not, however, scowling as Amelia had expected, but she wasn't smiling either. Her expression was curiously blank and a little dazed, and a small shift of her attention showed Amelia why. The man standing next to her daughter was not, as Amelia had predicted, a police officer, nor was he in any way affiliated with the law beyond regularly breaking it.

"Sorry to come by so late, Mrs Novak," Sam Winchester said with a sheepish smile. "Do you have some time to talk?"


End file.
